Broken Origin I
by Dev Nine-Asher
Summary: (AU) L.A. 1996 - Spike, sans Dru, ends up Master of Los Angeles. One night his minions bring him a new pet - Buffy Summers, the new Slayer. (SB) COMPLETE
1. Default Chapter

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Broken Origin I 

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**Author: **_Dev Nine-Asher _

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**Précis: A/U **Basically Buffy's origin in a blender. 1996 – Angelus is back, and Dru leaves Spike for him. Spike becomes unwilling master of  L.A. Buffy's parents are killed – and Spike ends up with an untrained Slayer. (S/B) WIP

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**A/N: **Hey there. It's been a while since I've written much of anything, so any feedback, reviews, opinions, objections, whatever, will be a huge help. I wanted to point out, that though I intended this to follow Buffy's original origins closely, I also left out some characters I didn't think were really necessary, like 'Pike' and 'Benny'. Agree or disagree, they're just not there. Also, Merrick isn't killed by Lothos, but he still dies, so that's pretty much the same. I've tried really hard not to repeat things I know everyone has heard a billion times already, but there are some things you'll definitely recognize, and you _know_ they aren't mine. Speaking of…

**Disclaimer:** It's everyone's favorite vague disclaimer! I don't own anything you recognize, it's all Joss's baby – but then he probably owns everything you don't recognize, too, so let's just say I own nothing. 

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Chapter One L.A. Spring, 1996 

It was getting cold, not to mention – she checked her watch – late. Past late, actually.

It was nearly seven and her dad had said he'd pick her up at five-thirty.

Sighing, sixteen-year-old Buffy Summers stood up once again from her high perch on the cool concrete steps located in front of Hemery High School, and swept worried hazel eyes up and down the empty street. She sat down again with a huff after a minute, having seen no sign of her dad's green Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Hunching her shoulders against the building chill, she fished her cell out of her tiny black backpack, and used a carefully manicured pink nail to hit redial – but again, no answer. She tried her mom's cell, then her home number – _again_ – and left another message about how she'd like to get home sometime this millennium, and then dropped the purple flip phone back into her bag with a sound of disgust.

Her dad had probably completely forgotten that he was supposed to pick her up, which wouldn't be the first time. Her mom was busy at the exclusive art gallery where she worked, her cell tucked away in her purse, which was likely slung over the chair in her office, where she never spent more than five seconds. Then there was the other, more troubling excuse that she didn't want to think on too long – that her parents were both together, but arguing so loudly and fiercely over money, the time her dad spent on business trips and at the office, and the state of Buffy's own grades, that they couldn't even hear the telephone.

Buffy shook off the troubling thoughts, and hunched her shoulders, trying not to shiver as she cast another look around.

The light from the sun was fading fast. She heard the buzzing of a street lamp as it clicked on a few hundred feet away, and mentally tried to hurry her dad along. The atmosphere was getting way too creepy, like some cheesy teen slasher movie…

Buffy swallowed, running her palms up and down her bare upper arms as goosebumps sprang up all over her skin. She tried to distract herself by looking down at her outfit. It was one of her favorites, a simple white, sleeveless v-neck top paired with a short brown suede skirt, and knee-high brown boots. It had been a really dumb choice, now, not to bring along the long coat that went over it all, but she hadn't wanted anything to detract from the look. She'd worn the outfit with the express intention of getting blond-haired, blue-eyed Jeffrey's attention – and she'd definitely gotten it.

A small satisfied smile curved her lips as she recalled just how well she'd succeeded in getting the boy's attention – she had a mall date with him on Friday – and at how furiously jealous her friend  Kimberly had been when the junior had barely glanced her way after catching sight of Buffy…

A harsh breeze seemed to pick up then, dragging her from her smug thoughts as the cold air stung her skin.

Buffy gave a small shudder as she noticed how dark it had gotten while she was thinking. 

The tree-lined street in front of the school was completely quiet – she could barely hear the other usually deafening noise from the rest of the city around her, and she realized she hadn't seen so much as a car pass by in like, forever.

She checked her watch again. Seven thirteen.

"Ugh – they'll be sorry when I go missing and some crazy bag lady finds my mangled body in a dumpster behind some dirty, skanky bookstore in the Valley," she muttered out loud, feeling angry at having been so easily forgotten…the sudden shrill ring of her cell drew her out of her self-righteous self-pity, and she scrambled to answer it.

"Hullo?"

"Buffy?" It was her dad, sounding angry and distracted. "Where the hell are you?"

Buffy rolled her eyes, and then winced and pulled back at the static buzzing in her ear. Flipping her long hair back over her shoulder, she pulled the gold hoop-earring from her earlobe to avoid getting jabbed as she pushed the receiver closer in a vain attempt to hear him better. "Dad? Daddy, I'm still at school – you were supposed to pick me up, remember? At like, _five-thirty_!"

Hank Summers grunted. "I thought you had Cheerleader practice today."

"No, that's tomorrow. I had a study date with Cassandra, remember? Listen, are you coming soon?" Buffy looked at the long shadows, eyes darting up to warily scan the last dim streak of hot pink hovering above the skyline. "It's getting really late – "

"I _can't_ pick you up, honey, I'm on a plane, headed to Spain as we speak – "

"You're what?!" Her voice rose in dismay. "Dad, how am I supposed to get home?"

"What? - Breaking up…"

Buffy stood up, trying to get better reception. "I said, how am I supposed to get home? I've been waiting for like, two _hours_ already!"

"Don't whine, Buffy – I should think you'd have sense enough to be able to call a cab! I swear, sometimes I wonder if you use that head of yours at all – why didn't you call that Tyler kid?"

Buffy felt her mouth drop open. "Because you practically forbade me to see him, that's why! I thought you didn't like Tyler!" Before she could truly register the hurt, a high-pitched feminine giggle sounded over the phone, followed by more static, and she narrowed her eyes. "Who's with you, Dad?"

"What? I can't – you – "

"Dad?" The static was getting worse.

"Just – your Mother – go, no choice – problems - big contract – couple days, back on Saturday – call when I get there, all right? Love you, kiddo – you later!"

"Wait! Dad? Daddy!" Buffy let out a sound of disbelief as the connection went dead, and she lowered the phone to stare at it. For a second she thought her dad had hung up on her, but then she realized the battery in her phone had just gone dead.

"Great." Dumping the phone in her bag, she plopped back onto the steps. "I can't believe this!" Her mother was working into the a.m. at the gallery, her father had obviously not been in contact with her, no one knew she was stuck here, and…ugh. Now she had no way of calling anyone for a ride home, unless she walked to the nearest available payphone, one that wasn't behind the now locked doors of the school, which was at a convenience store at _least_ three blocks away!

On top of all that, it seemed her long-standing fears about her father having an affair with his secretary were completely true. She'd recognized that giggle – it had been that slut-tastic ho-bag Patrice, all right. That skeezy redhead with the fake boobs, too-green to-be-real-eyes, and the poorly done Baywatch babe lips so swollen with collagen that they looked ready to rupture at any moment! 

Buffy clenched her jaw so hard it made her teeth hurt. How _dare_ he cheat on her classy, upbeat mother with that unbelievable fashion-victim of a cow?! 

It was no wonder her mom had been acting so tight-lipped and strained lately whenever her dad mentioned late hours at his office! She probably knew, too!

Buffy couldn't recall a time when she'd been so disappointed in her father. If she was right and her mom did know about her dad and Patrice, it meant their marriage wasn't going to hold for much longer. If there was one thing she knew about her mom, it was that she wasn't going to put up with her husband cheating on her. 

Feeling helpless and teary-eyed at the thought of her small family's imminent destruction, Buffy covered her face with her cold hands and buried her head in her lap.

God – could her luck _get_ any worse?

~*~

The two vampire's could not believe their good luck.

They'd spent the day hiding out in a dumpster in the back lot, behind the large school, and the sun had just set when they caught the human's scent. They wouldn't have caught it at all if they hadn't been too busy running for their hides for two nights to feed, and only just risen for the evening, their senses painfully sharp from denied hunger.

It seemed the first victim was to be a tender young girl, completely caught up in her tears – and she was utterly _alone_.

Smiling widely as their demon face's emerged, the two starving vampires moved to creep up behind her, already tasting her terror, her hot, adrenaline-laced blood on their tongues…

That was when the glare of headlights pulling into the parking lot below sent them scrambling back. They hid behind the pillars at the top of the stairs, wondering morosely if they were about to lose their much-needed meal after all…

~*~

Buffy had heard some weird things from strangers in her day, living in L.A., but this…

"Uh-huh. So…does Elvis talk to you? Tell you to do things? Do you see spots?"

The big old guy who'd pulled up in the battered green car, Merrick, he'd called himself, drew himself up huffily, his heavy mustache bristling. "I am not crazy, I am telling you the truth. You are the Chosen One. The Slayer – and you must come with me, now, to the cemetery. I can prove it to you."

Buffy backed away warily, crossing her arms over her chest. "Just stay away from me, okay? You think I'm just gonna' smile and hop in your grungy old car like a good little victim? I don't think so. Anyway, if any of this was really true, why wouldn't you have come to me in the daylight, like a normal person? I mean, you could be one of these 'vampires', am I right?"

Merrick's bushy brows drew downward over his icy grey eyes. He looked very annoyed.

Buffy took another step back. _Great, annoy the killer/potential rapist, _she thought to herself with a groan.

"I had meant to come to you sooner – earlier this afternoon, actually, but there were – complications. Anyway, you must come with me. Your destiny awaits."

"My destiny?" She snorted. "Sorry, I'm destiny-free, really." With that, Buffy turned away, determinedly walking down several steps before the man's voice rang out behind her again.

"Have you ever dreamt you were someone else?"

~*~

The two eavesdropping vampire's couldn't believe what they'd just heard. They looked at each other, grinning, and silently agreed to follow the pair…

The Slayer and her Watcher.

~*~

After surviving the rising and dusting of two actual, _real_ vampires at the cemetery, Buffy was home, at last. She got out of Merrick's car woodenly, and walked up the sidewalk to her house. Merrick accompanied her

"You must try to act as normal as possible," he kept insisting. "Just…go about your day as usual."

"That's easy for you to say – "

Merrick's voice was stern. "You must keep your identity a secret, Buffy, for as long as possible. Once the vampires in this town find out that you are the newest Slayer – let's just say you won't be the one doing the hunting anymore."

Buffy waved tiredly. "Fine. I get it. Can I go to bed now?"

Merrick handed her a small white card. Buffy barely glanced at it as she clumsily shoved it into her backpack – it missed the pocket and fluttered to the sidewalk, unseen by any eyes save the two unearthly gold pairs watching from behind the trees near the street.

"You will meet me at that address after school tomorrow to begin your training."

"I have cheerleading practice," Buffy told him flatly, already resenting the responsibility he was thrusting on her.

"I understand, but Buffy – you'll just have to skip it. There are more important things, now."

She nodded. She wasn't 'skipping' anything – but she wasn't going to tell him that just now. 

The Watcher sighed, and turned away, starting down the walk. Buffy watched him, smiled a little at the sight of his bald pate shining in the light of the moon, and then shivered as a chill breeze picked up, rustling the new green leaves in the trees around her.

A frightening, grim thought struck her, and she called out as the older man opened his car door.

"Merrick? Is it…is it true, what they say about the not being able to come inside unless they're invited?"

He didn't bother turning around to answer. "Yes. Now, get some rest. I have the feeling that you'll need it, come tomorrow." He got into the car, started it up, and then pulled away from the curb.

Buffy felt the weight of eyes on her.

She swallowed, and struggled to turn her key in the lock. She entered her dark, lonely house with a shudder, and snapped every lock behind her, checking every door and window before setting the alarm, and dashing into her father's windowless study to barricade the door and turn on every light.

She sat under her father's oak desk, the wooden stake Merrick had given her at the cemetery clutched tightly in her hand. Somehow she knew there were vampires out there, watching, waiting…she couldn't go to sleep, like Merrick had suggested. She had to stay up, wait for her mom, make sure she got in okay.

A glance at the clock on the wall told her it was eleven p.m. Her mom wasn't due home until nearly two.

It was only three hours, but to Buffy, that night, it seemed like an eternity…

~*~

Two nights later… 

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All was quiet. The air was still as death, and no light penetrated the black place where he lay resting…

As the sun went down, the sounds of something stirring came from below. A few minutes after full dark fell, a discharge of static rent the air, and the screaming strains of an electric guitar blasted into sensitive ears. Flashing, multicolored lights shone through the tiniest of cracks under the door, and a few brave, faint streams of blue and gold briefly outlined the two figures occupying a large bed in the center of the room.

One of the figures stirred, turning, groaning – the rumpled sheets and tattered coverlet moved infinitesimally as a hand slid out from under them, and dropped down to the floor, knuckles rapping hard against the glass of a quarter-full bottle of Johnny Walker Black nestled in a heap of discarded clothing.

After several long minutes, the hand moved again, almost as an afterthought, and long white fingers tipped in chipped black nails curled around the neck of the bottle, drawing it slowly upwards until it disappeared beneath the rusty red coverlet. The sound of a cap being unscrewed coincided with the end of the song down below.

Silence reined again until another song began, the volume markedly increased.

An impatient, inhuman growl came from the bed, and one of it's occupants abruptly sat up, blankets falling away to reveal a fiercely scowling male with bleached, disheveled short hair, and intense, narrowed blue eyes that promised painful death for the first thing unfortunate – or unwise – enough to cross his path.

~*~

 Spike woke up with the mother of all hangovers, and the throb of loud music in his ears did nothing to lessen his discomfort. He carefully turned over onto his stomach in his bed, a groan escaping his dry throat, and tried breifly to remember the night before, but the pounding brain inside his skull was drawing a stubborn blank. Then he remembered the reason he had started drinking in the first place, and clenched his jaw, feeling angry and disgusted with himself. The night before had been the one year anniversary of the night Dru had left him.

Feeling himself going rigid with fury and hurt, his stomach beginning an uneasy churn, Spike forced himself to relax, and as he did, one hand laying loosely on the edge of the sheets slid off the bed, the back of his hand knocking against something hard and cool. A bottle…

It was all Angelus's fault, that rotten bastard. 

If only he'd convinced Dru to go left instead of right, into that sodding alley. All it had taken was one glimpse of their broken, rat-sucking, soul-cursed sire, and she'd as well as left him right there, back in New York. He'd just been too stupid to notice. 

It'd been just him and her, together for so long, so many years, _decades_ – she'd talked him into helping her find a way to break Angelus's curse, and because she meant so much to him, he had. He'd hunted all over the city, searched for any kind of lead, spent months and wads of cash only to end up dragging the unwilling Angel and the very  sickly Drusilla all the way across the country to Los Angeles…

There was an old monastery buried beneath an abandoned warehouse there, he'd learnt, and it held a great, massive library. The old monks had assembled it over hundreds of years, and somewhere, in one of those thousands of dusty old tomes, lay the answer to permanently unlocking his grandsire's curse – and the key to poor Dru's unhappiness.

The only problem had been that the current Master of L.A., a centuries old vampire by the name of Lothos, _lived_ in that old monastery. The only way he'd get the books they needed would be to challenge the Master - so he had - and he'd _won_…

**_Flashback _**

_January, 1995_

_In the beginning, they fought with fists and fangs, and it went on for hours until they could fight no more. Then they fought with swords…_

_Finally the ancient one called Lothos was on the ground, and Spike kicked him over onto his back, grinning maniacally, his tongue flickering out from between his fangs to swipe at the blood trickling from his broken nose._

_They were underground, deep within the monastery, and it seemed as if the entire vampire populace of L.A. was squeezed into the place, watching, waiting for the outcome._

_Just when it seemed Lothos had given up, he growled and swung his leg out, swiping Spike's legs out from under him as he lifted his blade to deliver the killing blow._

_Spike went down, his weapon sliding from his grasp. Lothos was up in an instant. He placed his booted foot on his neck, ignoring the younger vampires struggle, and drew back his sword to hack off his head…_

_Drusilla, who'd been watching wide-eyed from the sidelines gave a sharp scream and launched herself at the vampire. She landed, clawing and shrieking on his back, even in her weakened state trying her best to break Lothos's thick neck._

_Spike yanked himself out from under the boot crushing his head and used the distraction to dive for his sword -_

_That was when the floor collapsed._

~*~

Spike groaned when he stood up, staggering, feeling and hearing pieces of debris sliding from his back. He blinked through a haze of powdery gray dust that had risen up, and then reached down and pulled a very quiet Drusilla up to stand beside him.

He kept a supportive hand at her lower back, fingers spread wide to balance her weight if her fragile strength faltered. "All of you there, pet?"

"I do _not_ want a boat like this, Daddy," Dru coughed in a little girl's voice, shaking dust from her skirts.

Spike arched a scarred brow. Less there than even he'd thought. Well, he'd walked straight on into that one…

He squinted through the dark, took a few steps forward, favoring his left leg that Lothos had damn near broken, and smiled when he saw that the elder vampire hadn't been so fortunate in his landing.

The large, long-haired vampire was laying on the remains of an old chair, a jagged piece of wood at least as thick and large around as a man's fist shoved through his ribcage – fortunately for him, it had just missed the heart. Unfortunately – he was stuck.

_Help, I've fallen, and I can't get up!_ The words from the well-known commercial ran through Spike's head, and what with the exhaustion and the blood loss, it seemed just absolutely hysterical to him. He splayed a bloodied hand over broken ribs and laughed until he was in danger of crying from the pain.

"Will you still be laughing when I've run you through, fledgling?!" Lothos finally roared, his long fangs fairly spitting venom. 

Spike attempted to calm himself, though the vampire's claim almost set him off again. Really, the old man was stuck, right an' proper – he was a fool to think he was going to be able to go anywhere. He limped over to him, stood right over him and smiled. 

"I'll suck your heart out through your neck!" Lothos snarled, his eyes red-hot. Blood was gushing out around the massive wound in his chest.

"Right – sounds unpleasant, that." Spike licked his lips, and looked over his shoulder at Drusilla, who was examining her surroundings with glee. "Dru, be a love, and fetch us a stake, will you?"

After a moment she complied, excitement flashing in her dark eyes. "Spike, we've found it – the books are here! We shall have to throw a party!"

Spike curled his battered hand around the sturdy, splintered length of floorboard she'd handed him, and took a good look around, now the dust had settled.

She was right – they were in the old monks' library.

Lothos had unwittingly brought them right to it.

Spike leaned over and kissed her hard, hard enough to draw blood. "Go and have a look about, pet, while I say goodnight to nancy, here." 

Drusilla nodded enthusiastically. "Miss Edith will want a new dress!" she exclaimed cheerily before drifting away.

Spike shook his head, and back-handed more blood from his upper lip. He looked down at his adversary and tilted his head. "Don't feel too bad – put up a hell of a fight. Who knows, if it weren't for Dru, there, you may have won."

"My children will destroy you! They are legion, and they are loyal _only_ to me!"

Spike rolled his eyes. "Like I haven't heard that one before."

"You will never last as Master of L.A. – you are too weak! You are ruled by your human emotions!"

"Weak?" Spike stared down at him, offended beyond words for a moment. "_Human_? I'm _all_ demon, you poncey bugger!"

Lothos made as if to speak again, but Spike raised the stake in his hand, and cut him off.

"You know, I really don't like you," he drawled. "Remind me too much of Dracula – he was such a poofter, prancing about in his silk and lace…that's the thing about vampires. If you can't keep to the times, you fall prey to 'em, see. I reckon I'm doin' you a favor, mate." With that, he rammed the stake down – and became the new Master of Los Angeles.

~*~

April, 1995 

~*~

L.A. wasn't agreeing with Spike – the blood was plentiful to overflowing, yeah, but all he could taste after a solid four months of it was the smog in the air that seemed to permeate everything it touched. 

The thing about Los Angeles, too, was that the hunting was so easy it quickly became boring. Nobody cared if a handful of gang members disappeared over night, or even if an entire mission of homeless people and volunteers suddenly vanished. Truth to tell, it'd been funny at first, getting away with bloody murder right under the authority's noses, but Spike was fast missing all the attention he and Dru had been getting in Prague.

Come to that, he was missing all the attention he'd been getting from Dru, period.

Right now she was dancing dizzily around before him, waiting for her 'Daddy' to return from his first hunt since his curse had been broken. Her joy at having Angelus back was already making him jealous unto insanity. 

"So…you've been out. You've fed…with him. I can smell him all over you." Spike commented tightly. His voice turned stern as he eyed his lover. "That's where you took yourself off to, you wicked girl. You're weak, Dru. You've been gone for hours. I was worried. You shouldn't have gone out."

"But I was with Daddy. He takes care of me, he does."

"_I_ take care of you, Dru," he snapped. "You forget who the bloody _Master_ is around here? _I'm_ the big noise in these parts, not bleedin' Angelus!"

Drusilla only laughed, infuriating him further, and glided away towards a small, ornate round table covered with a black cloth. She didn't sit there, but reached out almost dreamlike to turn one of the many ancient cards laid out across the fabric. "Mummy let me in. I tricked her with my tears. She was soft and warm, and she hugged me like an infant before she saw my face."

Spike took a deep breath, just out of habit, and relaxed his jaw. Least she was talking about her night, now, and not _him_. "Did she now?"

"Mm. She tasted of chocolate. Bitter," she murmured in a purr, her eyes flickering over the card. "But bad Puppy, he was disobedient, and he smelt of another. I didn't like him - he stuck in my teeth, and bled all over the lovely carpet." Laying the card down, face-up, she pursed her lips and picked up another. Whatever was on the card made the vampiress smile, and she went on. Then suddenly – "NO!"

Spike glanced over in concern at the infuriated shriek, and saw her cast a card violently to the floor and tear at her hair. "What is it, pet?" His eyes caught the fluttering movement of the card and he saw what it was as it settled on the cracked concrete floor near his boot. The old, worn card pictured a blond vampire standing behind a swooning blond woman, and he was holding her possessively, drinking from a wound in her neck - The Lovers. 

"Cruel stars…" Drusilla spat at the floor, and then, hand shaking, reached out to turn the last of  the cards before she swept them away, her delicate features still twisted in fury. "The Six of Wands whispered in my ear - it gives me hope, but the King of Swords will still dash away, dash away, dash away all!"

"Yeah, whatever you say, love."

"Kindred souls," his black goddess was gnashing between her teeth, "A dirty, _foul_ soul - it's all false, it lies! _Asking_ for Daddy's curse!"

His head was starting to pain him. "Dru – "

"I don't like her, Spike," she told him softly, her lips and voice trembling. "_I_ Saw you first! Even now she Sees, and the air gets all pink when you look at her! She's a bad little dolly, she is."

Spike settled himself more comfortably in his chair, still too angry to bother listening closely to her prattle. "Come again?"

"Her tongue is destined to be cruel. It lashes cold hearts, makes them bleed, makes them hurt. Can't let her bloom and hurt my special boy, now, could I? No, no, have to clip her, _cut_ her, nip her at the bud – oooh, the things I've seen! The stars whisper such naughty things about you both. They scream at me during the day, from behind the bad sun, telling me of a horrible quest, and – " Drusilla's eyes, bright with malice, slid toward an empty corner, " – of _her_." 

Ordinarily Spike would have surreptitiously rolled his eyes and sniffed, and made some sort of soothing remark before hauling her off for a long, distracting hunt and a bit of torture, but it was different this time – he could sense it. It was another one of her premonitions, only this time it all seemed to be centered around him.

He forced a smile, and made an effort to lighten his tone. "Having another vision, poodle?" he asked coaxingly. 

"Nightmares from the future – oh, but they're awful, Spike. It's all her fault."

"Her?" Smirking slightly, Spike looked back over his shoulder at the offending empty corner. "Be a dear and come over a bit more specific, Dru – just who is 'she'?" 

"She's a season, Spike…one of them – but special. Strong. Stronger than you."

Spike groaned. He truly loved the mad old bird, but sometimes…

Drusilla made a sad, quiet keening noise. "The walrus. She'll be shiny new, and he'll watch over her. The walrus shall teach her to swim…"

"Sweet Jesus, Dru, will you stop? You're giving me a headache…"

Drusilla's fierce features melted away, and she gave a wounded sob as she doubled over into her full skirts. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…" her slightly hysterical voice was muffled, and she sounded frightened, of all things. "You'll never find it if you're gone looking for it, Spike."

Spike bit his inner cheek hard, fighting for patience, and then heaved a great sigh. He strode over to Drusilla, kneeling down and taking her icy hands in his. He pressed kisses all along the knuckles until she raised her head enough to look at him. "I'm sorry, sweetheart."

"Oh, my Spike," she whispered pleadingly, lifting a hand to run her fingertips through the short curls on his head, "don't you see? If she doesn't disappear…when you go down at last, you'll go down in flames. But you'll be happy, so happy – and I don't understand!"

Chilled by her words, but adept at hiding his emotions from her, Spike smirked his big bad smirk, and soundly kissed her frosty lips. "Well, I'm immortal, Dru, but I imagine one day, a good long time from now, mind, someone or something will happily hand me my arse, and it'll all be over. Don't bother me, though. I mean, after all we done, all we're gonna do, what are we gonna have left? As for goin' down in flames, well 

– I wouldn't have it any other way, baby."

"My brave Spike – I'll miss you and your burning baby fishes when I don't see you anymore."

Spike frowned at her fatalistic choice of words, but flipped back the tails of his duster and stood back up. He offered her a hand, and she straightened slowly, her skin looking very thin and pale. "Stop talking nonsense, you know I'd move Hell and Earth to see you again, you mad old thing." 

"I'm still hungry, Spike," Drusilla pouted. "I should have stayed out longer with Daddy. The blood he draws makes such pretty colors."

Spike nearly gnashed his teeth and bit his tongue in two. Enough was enough!

"Speaking of Angelus," he began quietly, his eyes on her with a sly watchfulness, "I

thought I saw him take that new bird Miranda back out with him tonight. Thought I heard him tell you he was going alone." He made sure his voice held nothing more than a fiendish curiosity. His girl had a tendency to read nasty things into whatever he said when she'd a mind to. He didn't want to e accused of being jealous, even if he was.

The dark-haired woman stopped mid-twirl beside him, and bent at the waist, her hands doubling into tight fists that she pressed against her lips, her dark, mad eyes looking troubled and wide. The sight sent a shiver of apprehension skittering down Spike's spine. He'd seen Dru completely unhinged before, and it usually preceded some dark and dreary period in their existence together…

"Trying to get me in trouble, Spikey?"

Every muscle in his body went taut at the sound of his sire's hated voice. Slowly turning, Spike forced a smile to his lips and inclined his head. "No more than usual, mate. How went the hunting?"

The tall, dark man standing in his doorway sauntered in, his dark eyes already landing possessively on Drusilla. "Very well. In fact, it went so well with Dru, earlier, that I came back for her. She has a real gift for the weak ones, doesn't she?"

Spike bit back a snarl and said nothing.

Angelus came farther into Spike's room, and mocked him by laying his hands on Drusilla's exposed shoulders. She fell against him, smiling secretively.

"So…have you broken the news to him yet, my love?"

"Oh yes. I'm leaving you, my Spike." Drusilla said the words to Angelus's hands, not even bothering to face him. Her voice was a low monotone, as if she were in a kind of thrall.

Spike growled in pained disbelief,  blinking back the moisture that rose in his eyes. "Dru," he began brokenly. "Tell me you're not…tell me this isn't happening."

"Guess you just don't do it for her anymore, my boy," Angelus commented in a tone of false commiseration. "I had her first – suppose I just ruined her for you, after all."

"I want to leave, now, Daddy!" Dru suddenly cried in a panic, hands fluttering. "I – cannot bear to be here any longer! All I can see is _her_! He's all covered with her!"

Spike took a step forward, his movements leaden. He made as if to take her in his arms, but she started screaming, shouting - God, she was in such a state. She acted almost sane one moment, then completely off her bird the next, which really wasn't so terribly unusual for Dru – but the things she said! And the way she said them! She actually went on to tell him that he didn't love her anymore, accused him of loving another woman – and he gaped at her.

"When would I have been with another woman, Dru?" He finally yelled in a fury, ignoring the snickering Angelus looking on. "I've been practically fucking nailed to your side every day and night for the past _century_!"

Drusilla wasn't listening. She took his face into her cold, tiny little hands, and looked up into his eyes with a faraway stare. "She is the other half of your heart," she told him frostily, her sharp nails digging cruelly into his sharp cheekbones. "She will make a mark upon your existence, a deep mark."

He begged her then, actually got on his knees, weeping, uncaring who saw him. They'd been through so much together, seen and done so much – "I can't go on without you!" he said, but Drusilla was adamant. She tugged her white skirts away from his clutching hands, staggered a little, still weak from all that bad business on that cursed bridge in Prague, and shook her head. She looked down on him, grasping a smirking Angelus, and smiled almost sadly. "It's better this way, my Spike. If we'd taken the wrong right, things would have gone very badly for you in the end. The flames were pretty, but they burnt your lovely flesh all away. I'm angry with you, but, yes, this way is better. You mustn't let her die, Spike. With her comes the escape you desire – _but only if you choose…"_

**_End Flashback_**

She'd gone away, deserted him, left him. In the blink of an eye the world he'd known was gone.

After all he'd done for her, all he'd gone through, the _ungrateful bitch…_

He'd crawled off into some pub, gotten utterly pissed, and finally decided he was going to drive. He hadn't known for how long, or just where to, but that's what he'd done.

He'd gone looking for redder pastures, eventually – but he'd reckoned a place didn't get any redder than L.A., what with it bein' close to an actual Hellmouth, an' all that rot. So he'd come back, and weren't Angelus and Dru lucky they'd gone, because he'd been ready to have them slaughtered if he set eyes on them again. He didn't know where they went, or when, and he didn't bloody care.

Now here he still was, a year later, bored out of his skull – and the ache of betrayal was still raw in his chest.

Spike kept his eyes closed, pushed his face against his pillow, breathing in the scent of menthol cigarettes and stale alcohol. He tried desperately to go back to sleep, knowing even as he did that it was pointless. There was going to be no more sweet escape from his now tangled existence – and besides, he had to go down and kill whoever it was playing that bloody music…

_Oh, well…hair of the dog, an' all that_, he thought darkly, and felt around the piles of clothes and junk on the floor bedside until his fingers wrapped around the bottle neck. Not bothering to sit up, or turn over, he dragged it up under the covers and lay for a moment with the cool glass pressed against his thumping temple…when he felt he could stand the agony of moving again, he twisted the cap off the bottle and rose up just enough to down a few hasty gulps.

When he dropped the empty bottle beside his pillow, he noticed with satisfaction that the music had finally stopped, and he was feeling a bit better, so he reckoned – rather generously on his part, he thought -  that maybe there needn't be any minion slaughter tonight. Then the sodding noise started up again, the volume so bleedin' loud he could feel the bass reverberating in his chest. Normally of a night he wouldn't have minded, but with the hangover, his head feeling thick as shit, and the mess with Dru, this was just too much.

He'd just take a moment, wait for it to pass, then get up and make with the blood bath -

_Dru._

_Bitch._

Spike growled low in his throat, his entire body tensing. Suddenly his anger had nothing to do with the berk below stairs. _That's it,_ he thought with an inward snarl,_ somebody _has_ to die_. Ignoring any lingering discomfort from the hangover, he sat up and impatiently yanked the shroud of sheets from his head.

That was when he saw that he wasn't alone.

Dark eyebrows shot up as he turned his head and looked at the lump occupying the other half of his bed. He shook his head and dropped it back on his shoulders to glare at the ceiling. 

_Does it never end?_

The other occupant of his bed shifted, and Spike looked back, albeit reluctantly.

It was a girl, and though a pillow covered her face, and the sheets her lower half, he could tell who she was just by looking at the truly spectacular front bits staring him in the face. Lori, or Lauren, or something. Blue-eyed, blonde-haired, a spoilt Valley girl who was just a sprog by vampire standards. She'd been eyeing him up for a few weeks now, but truth told, he just hadn't been interested…his eyes widened as he realized he'd probably been taken advantage of in his drunken state.

_Stupid cow._ Annoyed by the knowledge he'd been used, he slid his foot over, and none-too-gently kicked the bint out of his bed. The girl hit the floor with an unpleasant thump and he heard her stir, and moan angrily, but she didn't wake up. Spike smiled tightly and leant forward, plucking his discarded jeans off the floor. _Thank God for small favors. _

He finished locating and pulling on his clothes, stomped his bare feet into his boots, and took a  minute to straighten out his hair before grabbing up his long black duster and sliding his arms into the comforting, familiar silky lining – he sighed, relaxing slightly. Every time he put his leather on, it felt like coming home.

For a moment Spike stood in front of the door, hands shoved in his pockets, head tilted down and slightly to the left, regarding the female on the floor through his lashes. If the girl had been awake just then, demon or no, the predatory, unholy gleam in his blue eyes would have sent her running, screaming for her unlife…

Spike fished through the contents of his pockets before coming up with a battered Zippo lighter, a book of matches, and a crumpled pack of mentholated smokes. 

It really was just as well she hadn't woken up, he supposed. He was going to be busy for a while, anyway, and if she had woken, he'd probably have killed her right off, like as not slitting her bloody throat clear through for being such a mercenary little bitch - but then, that would've kept him from punishing her proper – and where was the fun in that? He'd leave her be for now, but they were sure as hell gonna' have words later.

Thoughtful eyes still on the girl, Spike dropped the lighter back into his pocket and ripped a stick from the matchbook instead. He struck it with the tip of his thumbnail, watched the flame burst, and finally touched it to the end of his cigarette. Taking a deep, satisfying drag, he watched the match continue to burn, sharp features highlighted by the golden glow - and then his expression hardened. 

Girl thought she was clever, no doubt, thought she'd moved herself up on the vampire social scale by bonking the big bad – well, the bird was gonna learn fast that he was _nobody's_ bitch. 

Not anymore.

Spike turned on his heel, flung open the door, and flicked the still burning match casually over his shoulder. He smirked as his demon face emerged into the dim light, contentedly exhaled a cloud of smoke out his nose and through his fangs, and then kicked the door closed on the furious, pained screech from Lori/Lauren as she woke, the bit of searing hot charcoal dousing itself on her bare skin.

~*~

"Oi, clear off you lot! Gettin' so I can't friggin' blink without stepping on some – oh,  Sweet Christ! Artie? Artie, what are _you_ still doin' here? Don't you have places to go, things to steal? _People to kill?_ Yeah? Thenbloody naff off, mate, and let a bloke by, will ya?" _Soddin' Fyarl's, do you a favor _one_ time, and think they own the place…_

Hell, for a half-pence, he'd let 'em have it, _and_ the whole leadership bit into the bargain! It was really too bad he didn't have anything better to do…

Spike stalked through his block-long warehouse lair, not bothering to stop as he groaned at the wave of halfwit questions being directed at him by a host of nervous minions. There was word out on the street that a new Slayer had been called – and that new Slayer's hometown just happened to be L.A. – Spike's latest hunting grounds. 

Sidestepping a two-headed demon that was arguing with itself, Spike scowled. The place was so crowded tonight; it was obvious the creatures that usually roamed the streets were too scared to go out. There were demons wedged in wall-to-wall, most of them, he'd learnt all of about five minutes past, had shown up in a sort of mass exodus, offering their loyalty to the Master just so they could have a decent place to hideout, a temporary safe-haven of sorts. Usually the eerie old joint was cold, dark, and fairly quiet, aside from the occasional party when he got bored.

Right about now his home looked like Disney World in July on crack.

"What should we do, Master?"

Spike ground his teeth – he didn't care for being called 'Master', especially when he didn't really want to be the Master in the first place. But if he was gonna' hang around these parts, he was gonna' be stuck with one of the things he'd come to loathe most of all in the time since Drusilla had left him.

_Responsibility_.

The thought left a bad, ashy taste in his mouth, and put him in an even fouler mood. The creatures still hanging about the darkened lair, crying on about the ruddy Slayer didn't help matters along any, either. Their voices grated in his ear, setting his teeth on edge.

_Any second…any second now I'm gonna' snap, _his demon thought gleefully, _and then…then there'll _finally_ be some blood -_

"Where do you think this Slayer lives?"

"What if even now she seeks us?"

"The Slayer? Dude, I am _so_ outta' here!"

"Uh – what's a Slayer?"

"Dude, you are sadly outta' the loop – and you _reek_! Smell like embalming fluid! Damn, what were you, like, born yesterday or something?"

"Uh…yeah?"

"Master? Master, do you suppose she knows of our lair?"

"Jesus fucking Chr - how the bloody hell would I know?!" Tired of the prattle, Spike stopped in his tracks, and whirled around, demon face emerging as he caught a sniveling minion by the throat and pinned him against a crumbling cinderblock wall. He snarled viciously, yellow eyes flashing in the artificial light of a bare bulb swinging nearby. 

"Master." 

A hand settled on his shoulder, a big hand.

"Thought I told you to stop callin' me that," Spike said, closing his eyes breifly, a quiet warning in his voice. He knew who it was, without having to look. It was Lucius, his second-in-command. No one else would have had the stones to touch him.

"I must call you by the title your lineage decrees. You are Master of Los Angeles, grandchilde of Angelus, an heir of the most unholy Order of Aurelius – "

Spike rolled his eyes, ignoring the pang the mention of his sire's name sent through him. "Spare me, Luc, just…what is it?" he growled, shoving the vampire in his grasp higher against the wall. His head was beginning to throb again, he was still pissed about being as-well-as date raped the night prior, he hadn't been able to find out who'd been playing the bloody music earlier, and now he had a local Vampire Slayer to deal with – he _really_ needed to kill something!

"Killoran and Tobias have returned," Lucius intoned.

Spike's jaw thrust forward at that, and he closed his lips over his fangs, thinning them into a straight line as he glared up at the panicked vampire whose throat he was slowly crushing. He would have glared at Lucius, too, if the bloke wasn't the size of a bull elephant, and didn't take kindly to dirty looks - even ones given him by his displeased master.

"I thought I told those two wankers not to come back," Spike bit out impatiently, still staring unblinkingly at his terrified prey, his nostrils flaring dangerously. His hand tightened, gave the vampire a little shake, and the creature winced as his head bounced off the wall. "Didn't I leave orders for them to be staked if they so much as showed their faces 'round here again?"

Lucius was unperturbed by the raw violence in his master's voice. "Yes, Master, but – I thought you might first wish to see what tribute they have brought in your honor."

"Are you daft, or just bloody deaf? I told you not to call me – " Spike frowned, anger melting away to be replaced by a sense of innate curiosity. He turned his head to look at the giant over his shoulder, his now blue eyes lighting up with greedy self-interest.

"Tribute?"

~*~ To be Continued in **Chapter Two**

~*~


	2. 2

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Broken Origin I 

~*~

**Author: **_Dev Nine-Asher _

_*Standard disclaimer applies – I own Nothing!*_

~*~

Chapter Two 

~*~

His curiosity was perked, he had to admit, although it was laughable to think what two duffers like Killoran and Tobias could possibly have scrounged up as an 'offering'…

After a minute Spike's interest waned, as it so easily did these days, and he shrugged off Lucius's announcement as his anger abruptly drained. He carelessly dropped the cowering vampire in his hands on it's ass, and watched blankly as it scurried away along the floor to disappear into the suddenly subdued crowds. 

"Master?" Lucius prompted at his side.

"Bugger it. Just – hell, I don't know, stake those two and be done with it. If I get my hands on 'em I'll take too long killin' 'em and I've got Slayer problems. I'm goin' out."

Lucius grunted meaningfully as Spike turned away toward the exit, and he spun around.

"What the hell else do you want from me? I told you what to do, just go do it – "

"Master, I must tell you that this is a _very_ unusual offering. It is imperative that you …receive it yourself. "

Spike stiffened his back and stared at him stonily. "Oh well, I'd best get right on it, then, 'cause if _you_ say it's important then it's gotta' be the bloody end of the world, don't it?"

~*~

 Spike's 'audience' room was actually just a big concrete storage block with black-washed, haphazardly painted walls, a single piece of furniture, and a pair of wax encrusted black iron candelabras. A bank of high-end, flat-screen TV's covered one entire wall, and came complete with illegal satellite hook-up. It smelled of fresh blood and old power, and it was one of his favorite places to hide out from his followers. 

Tonight it seemed to be the only space available for the entertainment sure to follow the arrival of Tobias and Killoran – not really because of whatever 'treasure' they'd brought him, but because he was going to take so much pleasure in eviscerating the two once he laid hands on them…

Grinning at the thought, Spike strode down the runner of red oriental carpet bisecting the room and threw himself into his red damask-covered, high-backed chair – appropriated from Lothos's quarters down in the monastery - dangling one leg over the armrest. His pose was lazy and relaxed, his expression showing nothing more than boredom, but anyone looking at him could tell he was dangerously on edge.

_There they are,_ Spike thought petulantly as Lucius opened the door and two familiar vampires approached. His jaw tensed, and his eyes turned arctic as he recalled their blundering idiocy._ Those are_ _the two pillocks what nearly killed my baby…_

 He was already entertaining visions of yanking their fangs out with rusty pliers. __

The vampires in question were dragging/pushing along a small figure, a little blonde chit with her hands bound in heavy chains behind her back.

Spike frowned and straightened up slightly. Well, now, wasn't that chary… the girl was just a little bit, obviously. What was so dangerous about this one that they would bind her up in chains? He tilted his head a bit, trying to get a closer look as they approached, but the girl had very long, thick, honey-colored hair, and it was tangled in her face. 

"Our offering, Master," the dark-haired Killoran gushed around his fangs.

Spike lifted his head and  eyed the vampire disdainfully from the corner of his eyes – he would kill this one, first, just for being such a brown-nosing git.

The red-headed one, Tobias, elbowed his partner, and then pushed his captive forward. He barely used any force at all, and the girl still fell hard, to her knees. A gag tied around her head muffled her whimper of pain.

Biting the inside of his cheek, Spike placed his hands on the chair arms and swung his leg back over. He took his time looking his prize over, fingers tapping the top of his thigh. The little blonde girl withdrew further into herself, and her fear only fed the demon inside him. He could feel his blood heat with each whimper, each shiver and shudder, and he smiled perversely. Sliding out of his seat, he crouched down before the girl, leaning an elbow across one knee, and letting his hand dangle. The other hand he used to reach out and rub a strand of glossy dark blonde hair between his fingers. He kept his voice low and charming as he asked, "And who is this lost little lamb?"

At first she stared at him without comprehension. Then the girl stiffened, looked up at him with large hazel green eyes so striking in color and radiance and shape that they actually gave him pause. Spike stared back at her, feeling not a little stunned, and caught something fast and fierce running beneath the all-consuming fear in her eyes. He heard her strong pulse pick up speed, skip a beat, heard her breathing, soft and jerky, hitch in her throat - and then she jerked her head away from his now fisted hand, losing a long strand of hair in the process. 

Spike's eyes swept over her, and a frown pulled his dark brows together. He couldn't begin to explain it, but he'd just had himself a nasty shock; felt it like a well-aimed kick to the danglies in fact.

There was something off about this one, something that made him uneasy…He didn't know why, the girl wasn't even really seeing him. She was looking right through him, but there was something about her that made him feel - vulnerable. Threatened.

_Unworthy._

Mouth tightening, Spike swept back the battered folds of his duster, bolted up from his half-kneeling position and backed up a few steps until he felt he could shake the disturbing emotions clinging to him.

Spike looked down at her bent, mussed head for a minute, and then shook himself again.

He wasn't sure if he was too keen on keeping this one around for very long. She seemed – hazardous. He turned to the two demons standing behind him. "You call 'this' an offering? She'll barely make a decent meal – looks like a sneeze would knock her over." Spike curled his lip threateningly. "Not nearly enough to make up for what you did to my ride. Do you have any idea what kind of damage bottle rockets do to vinyl interior?"

Tobias looked at his companion, who looked back doubtfully, and then took a step forward, a gloating expression on his demon face.

Spike didn't understand how the idiot had managed to live past his first decade. He was too stupid to realize just how close he was to being dust.

 "B-but Mast – er. Er, _Spike_," he corrected quickly, "this is the Slayer!" 

_'But' you set my fucking _car_ on fire!_ Spike opened his mouth to snarl back, but the other vampire's words finally registered, and his head jerked up, the cruel curve fading from his lips. "Slayer?" He drew himself up to his full height as understanding hit, his tone promising violence. 

"Are you telling me you brought a Slayer here? _To – my – lair?!"_

The vampire's young face showed his panic. Clearly he hadn't expected his master to be displeased. "I, uh, we – " he blinked a few times, before hastily pointing a finger at his equally gobsmacked companion. "I-It was _his_ idea!"             

Killoran's mouth fell open, exposing his fangs. "Hey!"

Furious, Spike shook his head at their unbelievable stupidity, and gave an impatient, extremely annoyed sigh. He focused a hooded stare on the girl and then shook his head, his expression dark. "So. This is the monster that has every demon in L.A. wetting their knickers and crowding my doorstep?" he asked disdainfully, unimpressed with what he saw in her this time.

"Her name is Buffy Summers," Tobias supplied quickly. "Her – " he snorted with muffled laughter – " _mom_ asked us if we knew 'Buffy' when she answered the door."

"_Buffy_?" Spike's voice mirrored his disbelief. "The Slayer's name is _Buffy_? Oh, now, this is just too much. Vampires of the world - beware the Chosen One who shares a common  name with French poodles everywhere!"

Killoran coughed. "Careful, Mas – Spike. She's wild."

Spike lifted a brow. "She doesn't look dangerous."

"He's telling the truth – she nearly ripped off my head before we knocked her out. The pain was…excruciating."

Spike thought about his car and sent him a steady glare through slitted eyes. "You don't what pain is, mate," he clipped out promisingly. "You really aren't getting it, are you? Bringing her to me, like this – it's a bloody _insult_."

Tobias swallowed hard, fidgeting until his master slowly turned his attention back to the Slayer. "She won't speak, " he pointed out as Spike snapped his fingers in her unresponsive face.

"Might have somethin' to do with seein' me bite her dear ol' Dad's throat out," Killoran bragged with a nudge at his friend.

Feeling deeply cranky, Spike rolled his eyes. "S'alright. Don't think I'm up to being chatty with the dinner tonight, anyway." He looked her over again and sighed. "Look at this," he said, reaching out to finger a honey-gold ringlet of hair. "All that fire and strength gone to waste. Killin' her isn't gonna' be any fun. Barely any fight left in the girl at all. Hardly worth the effort of bitin' her. But then, Slayer blood is Slayer blood. Dru would have – " he cut himself off, jaw tightening as his temper rose. Before he realized what he was doing, his hand fisted and he drove it into the girl's jaw. Her head snapped to the right, and stayed there.

"She's not resisting," Killoran pointed out stupidly.

_As if I needed an excuse to pummel a Slayer. _"Good," Spike answered with a cold fury, "I won't give her the chance to change her mind, then." Reaching down he knotted a fist in her shirt and yanked her upward until her face was even with his. "C'mon," he whispered tauntingly, "last chance for revenge an' all that." His eyes flickered over the fine bones of her face, the reddening spot on her jaw where he'd struck her. He smirked and leaned closer to her ear. "Liven up a bit, pet, and I'll let you stake these two gits before I kill you. Like that, wouldn't you? Get one back for the 'rents? Die knowin' they've been avenged an' all that noble rot?"

He knew a moment of triumph when the Slayer raised her downcast eyes and looked at him. It faded quickly, though, when she gritted her teeth, brought her knee up into his unprotected groin, and landed an elbow in his face.

Spike dropped her and staggered back, hissing in pain.

Immediately Tobias lurched forward and raised his fist to strike her.

Spike growled, his demon face rising to the fore, one hand holding his chin and jaw, the other clenching the top of his thigh. "Touch her and I butcher you."

The other vampire blanched and stepped back, dropping his fist.

Wiping blood from his lip, Spike pushed up after a moment, and returned to his place before the girl. He drew in a breath and his nostrils flared at the scent of fear coming off her in waves. Tilting his head, he looked at her with glittering yellow-gold eyes. "Looks like Fluffy's got a backbone after all," he drawled a little breathlessly. His tone hardened. "I think I'll rip it out."

Not completely unexpectedly a fist shot out again, punched him in the face, and put him on his ass. Spots danced before his eyes. This time she'd almost knocked him out.

Spike looked up dazedly, hanging onto his consciousness by a thread. So, they had been telling the truth.

She _was_ the Slayer.

He stirred, feeling as if he'd just come off a three day drunken spree.

The Slayer was staring down at him in confusion, as if she couldn't understand how he'd gotten down there. The calm, grim detachment that had been her expression a moment before had slipped away completely, leaving the face of a scared little girl who knew she'd just done something very, very bad, and was going to be punished for it. She actually put her trembling hands up in front of her, started backing away.

The scent of her fear returned, stronger than before, making his mouth water. Shaking his head to clear it, Spike wondered if she wasn't a bit crazy, but then he realized that she'd just been reacting on instinct. He passed a scrutinizing gaze over her face. A slow recognition dawned.

The girl barely even knew what she was, what she was capable of. She hadn't been trained up proper.

 With an icy grin he shot up and seized her wrists. He slid a boot behind her knee, bringing her down to the floor, and rolled on top of her, chuckling. He pinned her arms over her head. She immediately started struggling, wild-eyed, making delicious little whimpering noises in her throat, and he shook his head.

"Don't worry, love," he grunted, panting from the effort of holding her down. "M'not into deflowering unwilling virgins – always left that to my bastard sire. Well, almost always," he amended with a faintly reminiscing smirk. "Too many willing ones about to bother, anyway."

The Slayer struggled violently beneath him, but she wasn't getting anywhere.

"Y'know…if this is your best, it's not good enough," he jeered nastily. "But I'd wager you already realized that."

She went still for a second before she gave a mighty yank and freed one of her hands. She flailed around, and while he tried to get control of her again, she somehow got hold of a sizeable hank of his short hair and gave it a painfully sharp pull.

Spike let out a startled yelp and tried to shake her off, but she only pulled harder. He finally cursed and turned his head, lashing out with his fangs at the soft flesh of her inner wrist. She cried out and released his hair, and he grabbed her hand in his, crushing her fingers together. Terror filled her eyes, but he didn't care.

Gold eyes smoldering with orange fires glared at her from beneath a heavy, scowling demon's brow. "Try that again and I'll beat you into the next the millennium and back, see if I don't."

Her wrist was cut jaggedly open from his bite, and leaking blood. It smelled incredibly sweet. He bent his head to steal a few deep, hungry swallows before drawing his tongue across the gash and letting his face shift back to it's human state. 

The girl stared at him in mute shock as he raised his head, her face pale, paper white.

 "Sorry, Slayer," Spike said mock-ruefully, raising a thumb to swipe at the blood running down his chin. "Guess some women just bring out the demon in a man."

As her adrenaline-laced blood continued to spill, he felt his nostrils flare. The urge to kill her was so great he could barely stand it. He heard her pulse stutter and then quicken, and knew she was about to pass out.

"Get me a bandage," he said over his shoulder. He watched the Slayer's eyes widen slightly at the order before they abruptly rolled back into her head. Her head dropped to loll against his forearm, and he could feel the heat of her exertions warm his skin through the sleeve of his duster. 

"A-a bandage?" One of the vampires suddenly asked in confusion.

"Yes, a bandage," he snapped, and realized he was still as well as cradling the Slayer in his arms. Disturbed, he immediately drew back, letting the girl's head thud loudly against the concrete floor. He frowned, and impatiently snapped his fingers over his shoulder. "Come on, give me a cloth or somethin'. I need to bind up this wound before she bleeds out, you dolt."

A strip of fabric touched his fingers, and Spike accepted it without looking. He wound it tightly around the girl's small wrist and roughly knotted it.

"You're not gonna' kill her?"

Spike smiled unkindly at the unconscious girl. "Not yet. I've just had a better idea." Straightening, he slowly turned around and looked the two vampires up and down, an expression of chilling malice lighting in his blue eyes. "Now…as for you two…"

~*~

**_Dream/Flashback_**

~*~

She was late, late, late! So late she felt like the white rabbit, in fact – "Eek!"

Scrambling to cover herself, even though she didn't need covering, Buffy glared at the man who'd crept up beside her in the empty girl's locker room. "Merrick?! What are you doing here? This is a _naked_ place!"

The older man glared right back, his mustache twitching. "If I have to remind you once again that you are the _Slayer_ – "

"Ugh! Not that again!" Buffy rolled her eyes at the ceiling. "Well, what if I told you I don't 'want' to be the Slayer?"

"I tell you, you have no choice in the matter! You either agree to be trained, or the vampires will eventually find out who you are and you _will_ die."

Buffy stared at him and then started throwing her cheer gear back into her bag from where she'd laid it out in readiness on the bench, her long ponytail swinging violently. "Ugh! Fine! I'll be the stupid Slayer, already! Just don't expect me to give up my social life because of it. I'll skip practice tonight, but just this once, got it? I've got a full schedule, buster."

"Don't be so blind, Buffy. It is dangerous out there. There are vampires, and a million other evil things I won't tell you about at the moment because I know you're already frightened. You don't yet understand the evil they stem from, don't yet know the monster, the nature of the beasts. You haven't yet seen a victim. You don't know the horror of it, the…the _violation_ of being leeched by a demon."

"So you're saying it isn't like the movies," Buffy commented sarcastically.

"No, it is not. This is serious, girl! When most vampires' kill, they don't just drain their victims and leave. They aren't anything so simple as murderers. It is in their nature to hunt, to torture and kill – and sometimes, to add to their number. When they exchange blood with a victim, they leave much more than just a corpse behind."

Buffy held up a carefully manicured hand. "Listen, I don't have to know all the gory stuff to be able to slay a vampire. Wooden stake, holy water, sunlight – it's like falling off a log."

Merrick's voice was bursting with frustration and indignation. "Buffy, you aren't listening to me! You're hiding, being flip because you do not want to face your reality. You are afraid, and it's to be expected – but if you want to live longer than a few nights, you must learn how to kill your fear, to eradicate every trace of it. Vampires can smell it, are attracted to it – they _thrive_ on it. To kill a vampire you must understand how it moves, how it thinks. You must know that you cannot just walk into a cemetery toting a bag of wooden stakes and expect to slay every vampire you come across!"

Feeling pissed off, Buffy through a shoe into her bag with unnecessary violence. "Watch me."

"Buffy, you must understand, there are varying degrees of skill, of strength among the undead. The older they are, the stronger they are. They are fast, and they are cunning. They are not the weaker, confused newly dead that you encountered at the cemetery last evening. Sometimes it doesn't even matter how old the vampire is for it to be more treacherous than another. For instance, there is a master vampire in this city right now who is little more than a century old."

"So?" Buffy continued angrily stuffing her cheer gear back into her gym bag. "I thought you told me in the cemetery the other night that there are a lot of master vampires. Big whoop."

"This one is master of _all_ Los Angeles, Buffy. The only way he could have become master is to have killed the previous one – and that vampire was nearly a _thousand_ years old by our records, one of the oldest existing vampires on earth."

"Only 'one of'? Not 'the'?" Buffy shuddered. "I'd hate to see what the oldest one ever looks like. Hope he uses a good moisturizer."

Merrick ignored her interruption. "Lothos was famous for hunting Slayers, and over a thousand years, he killed _many_. The current master defeated Lothos in combat. Am I impressing upon you the seriousness of your situation?"

"Okay, this guy is like, the _Ubervamp_. What, does that mean he has his own parking space at Neiman Marcus? So what if he's like, Mayor of the L.A. undead. He's just another blood-sucking vampire, Merrick." 

 "_This_ blood-sucking vampire could snap your foolish neck in a second, Buffy."

Buffy stilled and slowly brought her eyes up to meet his.

Merrick's tone became low and very intense. "This master has killed two Slayers over the past century, Buffy – that we know of. There is another which has never truly been confirmed."

"He – this guy, he's killed…Slayers? _Current_ Slayers? The one's that you trained?"

"No, none of the girls I have trained have died by his hand – but by others like him." Merrick looked strained. "This is why you must train. You must convince yourself that you are not going to be as easy to kill as the other girls."

"Well, I'm not. I mean, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm probably not anything like the other girls."

"No, I believe I can safely say that you are like nothing I have ever encountered before."

"See?" she grinned widely. "Anyway," Buffy pulled her bag onto her shoulder, and closed her locker door, "I have something those other girls didn't."

"And what might that be?"

"My keen fashion sense?"

The Watcher rolled his eyes. "Oh, vampires of the world, beware," he muttered behind his walrus-like mustache.

"Merrick, did you just make a joke?"

He sent her a warning look. "I'm going to ready things - just meet me at the address I gave you – the one you were supposed to meet me at _two_ evenings ago?"

Buffy sighed as the man left, her shoulders slumping as she heard the practice music start up from outside in the gym. _She_ was the captain, _she_ was supposed to be out there – but instead that total bitch Kimberly was probably strutting around with her new fake nose in the air, talking about her behind her back to the others…

Buffy stared at her locker, and then looked at her watch. If she were fast, she could get out into the gym, show the girls the new stuff, and get over to Merrick's without being _too_ late – but even if she was, she could always claim she got lost, anyway.

Decision made, Buffy looked over her shoulder to make sure Merrick had gone before shrugging off her bag and quickly pulling out her gear.

What was another hour, after all? The world wasn't going to end if the Slayer put off her training for just a few minutes longer…

~*~

**_End Dream/Flashback_**

~*~

Buffy woke up from the dream with a start, all of her memories hitting her with the force of a cyclone.

The world hadn't ended - but _her_ world had. 

Her Watcher, Merrick, her parents…they were dead, slaughtered in their homes.

All because of her.

Buffy shuddered, closing her eyes, moaning softly in denial, but the sight of mother's dead eyes staring accusatorily at her from the blood-drenched kitchen floor had her opening them again, and quickly.

God, she wanted them alive again. If only she hadn't stayed late for her practice, if only she'd just gone to Merrick's and then straight home…she might have been there to protect them, to save them. If only she'd decided to tell them about the vampires, and her calling. At least then they'd have had fair warning, even if they'd probably have called her crazy, and locked her away in a mental institution. If only she hadn't been so stupid and selfish…

Bogged down by guilt and horror and sorrow, the lump on the back of her head making it pound unbearably, Buffy nonetheless stared dry-eyed at her surroundings. It had been her experience that tears only made things feel worse.

She was in a what felt like a cavernous, drafty darkened room. The air was cold and damp, and smelled faintly of coppery blood and cigarette smoke. It was nearly pitch-black, which made her skin crawl, but enough light shone through beneath a crack under a door nearby for her not to be frozen in utter terror.

Buffy sat up, hands touching and feeling the cold hard cement floor beneath her. She hissed as she banged her wounded wrist against something as she shakily pulled herself up. She wrapped one hand over the bulkiness of a cloth bandage, and wondered why she couldn't remember what had happened between the time the vampires had knocked her out and now.

Not knowing what else to do, she cast a look around the silent room before she started inching towards the door.

"Don't bother," a deep voice said, laced with quiet threat. It echoed slightly off the walls. "I'll make it to the door before you can."

Buffy jumped as if she'd been bitten. She paused, sickly aware of the danger she was in. She looked stiltedly over her shoulder, and her ears caught a metallic click. A second later a flame lit the room enough for her to see that she was standing back against the wall. For an instant, she could also see the owner of the voice. She had a glimpse of a pale-skinned face, made up of raw, sharp angles and hollows, and a head of smooth platinum hair, highlighted by the fire, before the click sounded, and the room plunged into near darkness again. He was a vampire. She inhaled sharply in alarm, and the acrid odor of cigarette smoke curling thickly around her head nearly choked her.

"S'about time you woke up," the voice said testily. "Bloody great disappointment you are, Slayer. Vampire can't nip off with even a pint of your blood without you passin' out for two days straight. What the hell were they thinkin' when they called you? Got all the resiliency of a wet tissue, you do. "

Her heart beat kicked into overdrive. Buffy's hand automatically dropped to the waistband of her designer jeans, only to discover that the stake she'd carried there every night since the night Merrick had given it to her, was gone. Her hand shook as it clutched hopelessly at empty air. Her breath came in thin gasps as she waited for inevitable, listened for the rush of the vampire who would bring pain and death.

A noise sounded nearby, and she heard footsteps coming near. Buffy realized the vampire was moving, and he wasn't making any attempt to be quiet. As the footsteps stopped, she couldn't help straining to see how near he was. She saw the glowing end of a cigarette first, and had to blink through a cloud of smoke before she could make out anything in the dark. As it cleared, she gasped aloud and jumped, and pressed herself back into the wall. He was almost on top of her, and a spasm of fear knifed through her chest. As he bent his head towards her, his eyes caught the barest glint of light from somewhere, making them somewhat visible to her. He noticed her looking up at him, and he gave her a wide smile, baring his teeth in a thoroughly _un_-friendly way. He blew another cloud of smoke into her face, and she coughed despite herself. 

The vampire lifted the glowing cigarette up, face level, between his thumb and forefinger. The burning end was pointed right at her. "This botherin' you?" he asked considerately.

Buffy frantically shook her head as she tried to hold her breath. She was experienced just enough with soulless vampires to know that if she voiced an objection, he'd probably be more than happy to put the cigarette out, alright.

In. Her. _Eye_.

His hand moved and she gulped, head banging back into the wall, her heart beating triple-time in her throat.

"Relax," the vampire told her, a ghost of laughter in his tone. "Better concentrate on controlling your breathing, love – pulse is goin' a mile a minute, and it's not at all steady. Wouldn't want you sufferin' some kind of heart-failure before the fun starts – 'specially at your tender young age. That _would_ be tragic."

Buffy swallowed, fighting her need to strike out and run. He sounded entirely too reasonable. That in itself was enough to make want to run, but she didn't know where she was, or what the demon had planned. The door could lead to freedom, or a hundred more just like him. "Who are you? What do you want?" she asked in a strained whisper, trying to buy time while her mind raced with possibilities of escape...but then, in a harsh blast of reality, she remembered her parents.

What did she have left to escape _to_? Home wasn't home anymore. If she did get away, somehow managed to survive, what did she have to look forward to? No parents, being labeled the school pariah, sent to live with her extremely annoying aunt who already had like, ten bazillion bratty kids, or, even more likely, getting shoved off by the state to some dysfunctional foster family until she was eighteen.

As Buffy reeled from the depressing thoughts,  the vampire bent his head closer to hers, cold eyes that she could now tell were a shade of blue flickering over her anxious face with something close to glee. "Oh, you'll find out soon enough. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise now, would we?"

She didn't even want to know what he was talking about. Buffy attempted to turn her eyes away, but something about the vampire made her hesitate, made her lashes flicker up again, made her somehow dare to take a second look.

Her close regard of him was quickly noted, and clearly unexpected, as his brows drew together in a frown. He stared back at her for a long minute before a corner of his lips twisted up. "Scared of me, Slayer?"

She tensed at his use of her title, but didn't answer. He took a step forward, crowding her, and suddenly vamped full out. Unprepared for the change, the baring of fangs, and the low growl that came from his throat, Buffy flinched and drew back.

The vampire was evidently disappointed for some reason. His face changed back to human, and he eased back a bit with a sigh. "Not much of a screamer, are you? Pity. Can't say I'm not disappointed."

Buffy shook her head, confused. Was he trying to say she wasn't easily frightened? If only he knew…

 "But maybe you'll be worth the fight, then, after all."

"I don't want to fight you." Buffy dropped her eyes and stared over his shoulder at the darkness.

"Presumptuous, aren't we? Never said you'd be fighting _me_. You'd last about all of three seconds, pet, and that's being generous. Truth told, you're just…beneath me."

"Don't want to fight," Buffy whispered again. "Just…get it over with."

"What?" 

"Kill me," she said shakily, wrapping her arms around herself. She looked up again. "Drink me, torture me, snap my neck – I don't care how. Just do it."

"Uh-huh." The vampire reached up and thoughtfully rubbed his chin. "And this sudden…death wish of yours wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the tosser twins slaughtered your parents, would it?"

Buffy stood silent. While he didn't sound as shocked by her request as she'd have thought, he did sound _extremely_ disappointed.

"Yeah, thought as much. Well, much as I can, uh…appreciate your guilt, pet, apathy ain't exactly a turn-on to vampires. Killing something that actually _wants_ to die sort of sucks the fun right out of it for us."

Before she even realized what she was going to do, her arm reared back and she punched him – or tried to. He caught her fist in his hand, and grinned at her.

"What do you know - quite the little fighter after all." The vampire crushed her small hand inside his until she gasped from the pain, and then shoved it back at her. 

Buffy cradled it against her chest, eyes stinging. Fear grabbed her again, and she started stumbling away from him, against the wall. The vampire walked slowly after her, unconcerned by her instinctive attempts to escape.

"Y'know," he began thoughtfully, his accented words echoing in the room, "I wasn't there m'self, but I heard tell your mum was a fighter, too…before she got all drained o'course."

A surge of anger brought some of Buffy's courage back. She paused along the wall, and straightened up, focusing on the pain in her fist as she clenched it, instead of her fear. "This is pointless you know," Buffy told him flatly as he stalked her. Her skin was crawling as she strained her eyes to catch brief glimpses of him in the black room, unnerved by the rippling edge of something long and leathery, not unlike a bat's wing, the brief outline of a shoulder, the pale flash of a sharp cheekbone. "You killed my family, my Watcher – anyone who ever really loved me or cared about me is dead. There's nothing worse you can do to me. You might as well just kill me and get it over with."

~*~

Spike found himself shaking his head in wonder at the girls ignorance. "Nothing worse, eh? You really are a young one, aren't you?"

He slowly trailed after her as she began an unsteady, backwards trek around the room. "I've been around a good bit longer than you, and I can tell you…there _are_ worse things," he said ominously, gaining a huge amount of satisfaction in the entire exchange. Sure this Slayer couldn't fight worth a damn, but she was so much fun to play with. He hadn't had this much fun in _ages_…

~*~

To Be Continued in Chapter Three

Next: _"You think I'm impressed by you? That you bein' the Slayer means anything at all to me? I kill Slayers the same as I kill everyone and everything else – you're just another meal to me, baby."_

~*~

A/N: First, many thanks for the reviews. They're always helpful, more than you know. Second, due to several requests that I shorten my chapters, I've done exactly that. The second half of this chapter will be posted as chapter three, probably within the next week. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Kevin, without whom this story probably wouldn't exist.(K - I did NOT use a walk-through on Chaos Bleeds, you sad bastard…er, sorry I asked Mom to send you back. ^_~ Love you!) 

Thanks for reading!

~*~


	3. 3

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Broken Origin I 

**Author: **_Dev Nine-Asher _

**A/N: **Hey, just wanted to give my thanks to the reviewers. Sorry about the delay, but breaking up what was originally twenty-some page chapters into smaller ones is taking longer than I thought, and with the Holidays – y'know what I mean. By the way, standard disclaimer applies, as usual - I own NOTHING! Thanks for reading!

Chapter Three 

"I'm warning you," said the Slayer. "I-If you don't kill me now, you'll…I swear I'll make sure you regret it."

Spike's amusement increased three-fold at her stumbling threat. "Regret it? What are you gonna' do, Slayer? Bruise my shin? Scratch my face? Pull my hair? C'mon. You fight like a girl."

"I _am_ a girl!" she suddenly screamed at him. "I'm a girl, I'm _sixteen_ years old! I didn't know! I didn't ask to be born into this!"

"Nobody _asks_ to be born, love."

Spike reached out and caught her by the hair, yanking back sharply on it until she cried out at the unnatural angle he was forcing her neck into. "Anyway, it doesn't matter _what_ you are. You think you impress me? That you bein' the Slayer means anything at all to me?" he whispered insidiously into her ear, smiling faintly as she began to pant in alarm. He gave her hair another harsh tug and leaned in to nip hard at her skin, not enough to draw blood, but to bruise the healing mark of his earlier bite. 

"I kill Slayers the same as I kill everyone and everything else – you're just another meal to me, baby." 

A sob escaped her throat, and instead of becoming excited by her fear, her hopeless submission, anger surged through him, tensing his muscles. 

Unlike the two previous Slayer's he'd killed, there wasn't even a shade of nobility in this one. He'd at least had a smidgen of respect for them as warriors, whereas he felt nothing but disgust for this cowering, ignorant young thing. He felt cheated. 

Spike suddenly wanted to hit something – hard.

So he did.

~*~

In the next second Buffy was flat on her back, her jaw, and one entire cheekbone exploding in pain. The vampire looked down on her with a dark expression, the hungry, predatory glitter in his eyes snapping at her. 

In the few other vampires she'd killed, Buffy had noticed that their eyes held no expression, only a cold, vast emptiness. It had been frightening, but seeing the rage of emotions in this one's eyes was somehow scarier. It was obvious this was no 'off-the-rack' vampire.

A niggling suspicion edged its way into her consciousness past the adrenaline and the pain, but she pushed the possibility away before it could solidify into an actual thought. She could only pray that her instincts were wrong, because if they weren't…well, her eventual death definitely wasn't going to be an easy one.

Some remnant of self-preservation had her forcing herself back up onto her feet, her hands coming up in a weak version of the defensive stance Merrick had shown her that first night.

The vampire laughed at her when she lunged forward, clumsily attempting a roundhouse kick. The move was still fast and powerful, but her foot settled back onto the ground without ever even touching him. She lashed out with her fists next, repeatedly, until her muscles were aching and sore, but she still missed him completely.

Her breath was ragged in her chest when she finally gave-up. Panic got the better of her when he raised the back of one hand, and she skittered back against the wall, her pulse pounding in her ears, pain from her jaw still bringing tears to her eyes. 

He seemed pacified by her fear of him, and dropped his hand, the muscles in his jaw going wire-taut. "One lesson you'd do well to learn right quick, little Slayer," he said in a menacing drawl, "don't start any fights with me unless you're ready to finish them."

Before Buffy could blink, he vanished into the shadows.

Lights flickered on from somewhere above, harsh, fluorescent lights that hurt her eyes, yet only dimly lit the room around her. It took a moment of squinting for her sight to adjust, and when she finally could see clearly, she wished it hadn't.

There were monsters all around her, vampires, all sizes, and shapes of what had to be other kinds of demons. She was at the bottom of a deep, round concrete pit of sorts, and at the top of the tall, cracked, and age stained walls, they stood, peering down on her.

Staring at her.

Buffy swallowed, and couldn't help but think that they looked….hungry.

The air was virtually silent until she began to hear odd snippets of conversation, weird languages, grunting and snuffling, and finally, whisper chants of, "Slayer", that grew into a deafening roar.

The door she'd first thought of as being a possible escape opened, and Buffy darted a glance at it. Her heart fell to her feet as she saw the same two vampires that had killed her parents walk through it, and heard the screech of the heavy steel door slam shut behind them.

~*~

Spike struggled to hold his growing fury in check as he watched the circus act below. His mood was growing frayed and raw again.

He was leaning over the circular ledge of the old storage tank, shoulders hunched, one foot up on the wall, his forearm balanced across his knee. His fist clenched as he narrowed his eyes and slowly shook his head in aggravated disbelief.

The Slayer had shown herself to be at least a somewhat worthy adversary, earlier, even if most of her moves had been made purely on instinct. He'd thought to get a bit of entertainment out of her before he killed her, thought to make an example of her in front of the scaly masses, and rid himself of the annoyance of Killoran and Tobias as well, but she clearly wasn't facing up to the challenge as he'd hoped.

Instead of attacking the two vampires, she was playing defense, clumsily dodging attacks only when she was forced to instead of attempting to take them down. 

He was mightily disappointed, but he wasn't completely shocked. The girl was young, even for a Slayer. He reckoned her age to be between about fourteen and sixteen, and there was nothing about her to show that she'd ever been anything but pampered and spoiled. There wasn't a hint of independence in her, but then she seemed to have enough stubborn determination hidden deep down somewhere to more than make up for it. 

Spike bit the inside of his cheek as he saw the girl barely manage to dodge a killing blow, and then heard her bloodcurdling shriek as she attempted to claw her way up the walls.

He sighed noisily. Even given the fact that she didn't have a weapon, Slayers had always been known for their cleverness in a fight. The girl obviously didn't know it, but she had enough strength in her little finger to twist a bloody vampires head from straight off it's neck, and here she was, running in circles in an unimpressive display of frantic terror.

Despite his mood, Spike couldn't help the grudging, humorless smile that lifted a corner of his lips.

It actually would have been funny if it weren't just so utterly pathetic.

~*~

Buffy didn't know how long the cat and mouse chase went on before she heard the roar of the crowd died down, and she turned to see the two vampires that were taunting her go still, their expressions one of disbelief before she warily turned her eyes upward to see what they were gawking so anxiously at.

The vampire she'd 'met' earlier lightly jumped to the pit floor from a perch on the high wall above, so resilient to the shock of gravity that he was stalking toward her the moment his boots touched down. 

Her first clear sight of what she now knew _had_ to be the master around here had her staring dumbly. She honestly didn't know what to think of him, except that he wasn't like anyone she'd ever known before.

The vampire wasn't overly tall, but she was pretty short, so it still seemed as if he towered head and shoulders over her, especially now when she was feeling like a small, cornered animal.

Silence settled over the pit as he drew even with her. He was a few yards from her, the startling pacific blue of his eyes under straight black brows – the left one of which was noticeably scarred - pinning her in their annoyed glare as she looked back at him for a long, breathless moment. 

His nose was long and straight if not the tiniest bit hawkish, and his lips were at this moment grim, set in a firm, straight line. The harsh contour of his square jaw led into a set of truly devastating razor-edge cheekbones. The deep, sharp hollows underneath made him look hungry, almost as if he was starving, but there was absolutely nothing unattractive about it. It just made him look like the kind of guy who ate women – no pun intended.

The brilliant white-blonde shade of his hair was very pale, but still managed to stand out in contrast to his skin, which was the cold white that all vampires ended up with. To a regular person, he'd probably just look like he didn't venture outdoors much, but to Buffy, who knew what to look for, it was easy to tell he wasn't human. The tone of his skin was too even, too unblemished and smooth to be natural.

Moving her eyes over his clothes, which consisted mostly of varying shades of black, she couldn't help thinking that despite the very real fact that he was totally evil, and most certainly dead, he _was_ brutally hot, though the personal shopper side of her itched to play dress-up with him like one of her old Malibu Ken dolls…

They stood looking at each other for what seemed like minutes but could only have been a few seconds. Then the vampire arched a brow at her and everything within her recoiled for an instant before she mentally slapped herself. He smiled, an evil, lazy smile that lit up his eyes from within and lifted the corners of his lips.

Buffy swallowed hastily. Yeah, the guy was evil, and he was probably at that very moment contemplating stringing her up by her throat from her own entrails, and sure, she was the Slayer, but she was still teenager enough to recognize – and appreciate - a hottie when she saw one.

Even perched on the edge of sanity as she was, she had to admit that this particular vampire wore death well.

He moved slightly, and Buffy's errant attention was drawn abruptly to his black polish-tipped, lean-fingered hands. He held a two foot long spike of wood that ended in a jagged, lethal point. 

Bleeding and hurting, Buffy tensed as he approached her. There was no end to her surprise when the vampire tossed the weapon to her. Her Slayer reflexes were the only thing that kept her from fumbling and dropping it, she knew.

Buffy looked up at the master vampire in surprise, but he was already walking away from her, long leather duster billowing as he ducked through the door in the circular wall. She watched the two vampires that were her natural prey fling themselves at it as it closed, and then saw their eyes turn slowly back to her and the wooden stake now in her hands when they discovered, much as she had at the beginning of the fight, that there was no escape. They were afraid of _her_ now.

Buffy twirled the stake in her hand with a bit of newfound confidence.

~*~

Spike settled back onto the wall with a faint smile after he returned from below, ignoring the looks of disfavor he was receiving from a few of the other more intelligent demons around him. 

He watched the Slayer stalk the two creatures in the pit below, saw her take the long stake in both hands like a baseball bat and advance on the vampires in a sudden flurry of unpracticed but potentially lethal moves. He tucked his hands under his arms and listened in smug satisfaction to the roar of the crowd of demons surrounding him. 

Now this was more like it… 

~*~

Buffy had yet to gain the capacity for violence – she hadn't been the Slayer for very long at all.

"You won't use that," the red-haired vampire sneered when she hesitated.

She looked up at him, recalling the sight of her parents blood smeared across his lips, and hefted the spike between her hands the same way she had her bat at softball practice when she was nine. Her eyes narrowed. "Wrong."

The first swing split open the side of his face, sending dark, corrupt blood spraying across the floor of the pit. She caught him off guard on the second strike, and hit him full in the mouth, as hard as she possibly could. She actually thought she saw a fang tear free of it's socket on impact and go sailing through the air, but she had the other one to worry about as he let out a howl and rushed at her.

Buffy took a quick deep breath and dodged aside, sticking out her Nike-shod foot as the vampire passed. He tripped and plowed face-first into the dirty concrete, but she didn't have time to revel in her satisfaction. The bleeding redhead had been moving fast on the heels of his friend, and now flung himself at her throat, red coals burning in his gold eyes, his open mouth a roiling, wet mass of dark scarlet gore.

The sight terrified her, but somehow she found herself suddenly distanced from her fear. She almost felt as if she were watching herself through someone else's eyes as she merely tightened the grip on her weapon and braced herself, waiting for the impact of flying death with cold indifference.

Buffy just stood there, her features set with grim determination, inwardly gaping in disbelief that she wasn't turning and running. As the vampire approached, she thrust the long stake forward, feeling the pointed wood break sickeningly through flesh and sternum before breaking off with the force carrying the vampire forward and splintering in it's dead, dry, twisted lump of a heart. 

She was moving again before she could take pleasure in the shocked look on the creature's face. She turned around to face the dark one even as she heard the other disintegrate behind her.

The remainder of the stake was unexpectedly knocked from her hands, and she made the mistake of looking after the weapon as it clattered to the floor and rolled to some distance away. A fist swung with crushing power into her gut, stealing her breath.

Buffy flattened herself against the wall to avoid another blow. The vampire that had killed her father slashed at her, his nails ripping open her sleeve and tearing into soft flesh. 

The pain partially brought her fear back to the surface. 

What was she doing?! Even if she did manage to kill this vampire, she was still surrounded, still in the middle of nowhere for all she knew. She was going to _die_ anyway!

"I can smell your fear, Slayer," the vampire hissed.

His voice was smug, his scratched and scored expression arrogant. It pissed her off.

Buffy killed the fear, somehow stemming the panic rising in her chest again.

Suddenly she didn't mind the violence at all. Suddenly…she reveled in it.

Buffy kicked him in the stomach, feeling the sting of power rush through her leg muscles as they bunched and extended, felt it explode against the vampire as her foot connected with solid flesh, and it hit the floor, sliding at least ten feet on it's back.

The move brought on a renewed roar from the crowd, and Buffy shook her head at the fickleness of the demons as they began cheering 'her' on.

As she walked over to retrieve her stake, she saw the dark haired vamp struggle up onto his feet once again. As shaky as he seemed, she wasn't anticipating how fast he could still move, and she found herself backed up against a wall with the vampire's forearm pressing into her throat.

"I'll kill you slow," the injured vampire promised with a growl. "I always wanted to taste the blood of a Slayer."

In an instant Buffy had their positions reversed, her forearm crushing his neck as she stared coldly into his startled gold eyes. The broken stake was ready in her other hand, the point poised at his heart. 

"Not on the best day you've ever had could you kill me," she bit out, her lips curled back in a snarl. The stake plunged down, and with an unholy screech, the vampire crumbled into nothingness before her eyes.

With the two vampires that had killed her parents and Merrick dusted at her feet, and the fickle cheers from the crowds of others watching from above deafening her where she stood below in the pit, Buffy marveled at the irony.

Here she was, surrounded by nothing but darkness and death…and yet she'd never felt more alive.

**~*~**

**To be Continued in Chapter Four**

~*~

Next: _"Okay, first things first. If you run, try to escape, believe me when I say you won't be able to find anywhere safe enough to hide from me. I'm not making light with you. Believe me when I tell you, I'm not a nice bloke."_

_Buffy made a show of sighing. "If you aren't going to kill me, just how long do you expect to keep me here, anyway?"_

_His eyebrows flew up and he leaned forward into her face, a glint of challenge in his eyes. "As long as I bloody feel like it."_

~*~


	4. 4

Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Broken Origin I 

~*~

**Author: **_Dev Nine-Asher _

~*~

**A/N:** Hey there, just wanted to point out I borrowed the idea for imprisoning the Slayer and therefore temporarily ending the line, from The Lost Slayer series by Christopher Golden. It's not a huge part of the plot at all, mostly just an excuse for Spike not to kill Buffy right off, lol. But if you haven't read the series, and are planning to, you might – just the slightest bit – consider parts of this chapter as spoilers. I own _nothing_, btw. Thanks for reading!

~*~

Chapter Four 

~*~

With all that had happened it wasn't all that surprising to Buffy how easy it suddenly became to separate herself from what was going on around her.

For instance, she didn't even scream when a handful of large, angry looking vamps surged through the door at the bottom of the pit, and the particularly big, mean, ugly one heading them at the front actually pointed a gun at her.

It looked more like a high-powered rifle, actually…

"Throw the stake down, Slayer," the lead vamp growled.

Frowning slightly, Buffy turned her head and looked down at the jagged piece of wood still clutched in her hand. She hadn't even realized she'd pulled the stake back out of the vampire's chest before it had disintegrated.

"Put it down," she heard a now familiar voice say, and looked up distractedly to see the blonde master vampire standing with the big one who had the rifle trained on her. 

Buffy looked into his burning blue eyes and found herself smiling slightly. Before she even knew what she was going to do, she raised the stake and jumped right at him, aiming for his heart.

The shock on his face was the last thing she saw before she heard the rifle go off. Something struck her hard in the neck, and her eyes closed as she felt the stake ram home, and heard the vampire dissolve into dust…

~*~

Her first glimpse of Heaven was a dirty, spotted, water-stained…ceiling?

Buffy's heavy eyelids flickered for a minute before she became aware of a dull, aching pounding in her head. She squeezed her eyes shut for a minute before she instinctively lifted a hand to rub her aching neck. There was a small, painful bruise just under her right ear that was incredibly sensitive to any kind of pressure. She groaned, feeling her stomach lurch with sudden nausea. It felt like something small and furry had curled up and died in her mouth.

She slowly came around on the stiff steel cot, which was situated in a small, airless, windowless room that boasted little else -  a thin blanket, a seedy looking sink and toilet, a single steel chair, and a bare, single bulb burning in a cracked white porcelain socket near the narrow steel door.

Oh, and of course the sullen blonde vampire standing against the institution green cinder-block wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

"I-I killed you," she croaked, struggling to sit up without dry-heaving, or her head exploding.

He snorted. "Right. You didn't even come close – ended up staking the dolt standing next to me. Kinda' did me a favor, though. Nasty bastard didn't exactly believe in oral hygiene, know what I mean?"

Buffy shuddered at the impact of his unnerving eyes, feeling highly intimidated. " But…I got shot. I-I felt it."

"Tranquilizer dart, you silly bint." He shook his head at her. "Jesus, can't you even tell the difference between a tranq gun and a real gun?"

"I'm still alive?" she heard herself asking unexpectedly. "I'm not, like…dead?"

The vampire's lips thinned as he continued to watch her from beneath his dark lashes. "Not yet, love, but don't fret – tomorrow _is_ another day, after all."

Buffy stood up, startled by his words, and then forced herself to act relaxed as her nausea became a very real threat. There was no way she was going to humiliate herself by barfing in front of him. This vampire clearly got way too much satisfaction out of her discomfort. "Is this going to become a habit? Me waking up in weird rooms with you stalking me?"

"I'd be glad of it, if I were you. If I hadn't been here, you would never have woken up in the first place." He straightened up from his slouched position and snagged the only chair with one hand, dragging it forward and thumping it down in front of her. 

"You try to run, scream, stake me, you won't like what I do to you. I'll snap your neck like a dry twig, got it?" He caught her eye and indicated the seat across from him with a jerk of his chin. 

She didn't sit. "What does it matter? You're going to kill me anyway." She tried to look defiant.

 "I thought about it," he agreed threateningly. "I might just start thinking about it again, if you don't mind me. Now sit down, shut-up, or I'll tie you to the bloody chair with your intestines." A knock sounded at the door, and then it opened an inch. The vampire went over and stuck his head out, arguing fiercely with whoever was outside.

Buffy sat down in the chair with a huff, her lower lip jutting out. "So, if you're not gonna' kill me, what is this?" she demanded tiredly. "The Slayer/Vampire getting-to know-you social hour? No offense, but I tend to only hang out with guys that actually have a pulse."

"Alright, that's enough to be going on with!" He turned on her, his fangs descending like blades as the heavy steel door slammed shut again. "Piss me off again, and I can promise you that what you went through tonight will be one of your most pleasant memories!"

Buffy closed her mouth with a snap.

"Okay, first things first. If you run, try to escape, believe me when I say you won't be able to find anywhere safe enough to hide from me. I'm not making light with you. Believe me when I tell you, I'm not a nice bloke."

Buffy made a show of sighing. "If you aren't going to kill me, just how long do you expect to keep me here, anyway?"

His eyebrows flew up and he leaned forward into her face, a glint of challenge in his eyes. "As long as I bloody feel like it."

Shaking her head, Buffy rolled her eyes and said willfully, "But you can't just keep me here – I mean, what's the point? There's no kind of gain in it for – oh my God." A thought struck her, and she thoughtlessly jumped up out of her chair. She scooted around it, putting it between her and the vampire. "I have to die for another Slayer to be called."

His blue eyes gleamed with anarchy as he backed off and slowly started circling her. "Not nearly as thick as I thought you were, are you?"

Buffy shook her head again as she felt the blood drain from her face. "Y-you can't just lock me up for forever. You won't get away with it. My – my parents – the police, they'll realize I'm missing and come looking for me!"

"Yeah, they'll come lookin' for you pet, but not for the reason you're thinking of. It's a sad fact these days, teenagers get all depressed and unbalanced, end up offing the 'rents. They'll come lookin' for you to lock you up, no doubt. What's the difference in being in this room for the rest of your life and bein' stuck in a prison somewhere? Get a lot more privacy here, I'd wager."

She felt sick at her stomach. "It's not true. Nobody could believe that I – that I could ever – " Buffy sank down onto the cot. It _was_ true. She was popular at school, but it wasn't like she'd ever had any real friends. The 'friends' that she did have she knew were jealous of her – and they'd have no trouble at all believing what they _wanted_ to believe.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"Oh, please. Don't flatter yourself. What, you think I _want_ to stick around this sinkhole? Not bloody likely. M'only here 'cause I got nothin' better to do. Bein' in charge has it's perks, sure, but s'not like I'm King of the bleedin' World. I get the respect, yeah, but I also get stuck with all the crap." His eyes swept over her distastefully. "Like figurin' out what to do with the likes of _you_."

"Hell-o! You're a vampire - you don't have to stay here if you don't want to." Buffy squinted her eyes at him through the long tangle of her hair. "You're running away from something, aren't you? What is it?" she asked in mock sympathy. "Bad break-up?" 

The vampire's mouth fell open. "Shut-up. You should watch how you speak to me, little Slayer," he warned her, his jaw working furiously.  "Your words are gonna' start costing you."

"Whatever," Buffy retorted snidely.

He walked over to her and wound a tendril of her hair tight around his finger. "You know what I think? I think you'd like to see me lose control – bite your throat out and bleed you to death. I think that's exactly what you'd like me to do."

Buffy barely kept herself from shying away. His nearness made her extremely nervous, especially know that she knew exactly who and what he was – "Wait."

He dropped his hand and lazily tilted his head at her.

"You never…never told me what your name was."

"That's right, I never did, did I? How rude of me." He smiled at her. "I'm Spike."

Buffy's eyebrows shot up. "Spike? Your name is…_Spike_?"

He scowled. "Yeah - what of it?"

"Oh, nothing." She bit back a smile. "So, uh…why do they call you that? I don't," she snorted, trying to hold back a laugh, "I don't see a studded collar anywhere."

Spike drew back, offended. "M'not some bleedin' bulldog, Slayer. Rest assured, I _earned_ all of my nicknames."

Buffy bit her tongue. "Yeah? What's your other one? Scamp? Scooby? S-Scrappy Doo?" She couldn't help herself. She laughed out loud.

He looked at her with narrowed eyes. "William the Bloody…and I'll gladly demonstrate how I got 'Spike' if you don't have a care. I've still got some rail spikes 'round here someplace, I'm sure. Nice, big rusty ones. Maybe I won't have to worry about you scarpering off if you're impaled on a door somewhere…" He trailed off, appearing to actually be giving the idea some serious thought. "S'worked before."

Buffy stopped laughing. She went pale and nearly retched.

 "'Sides," he continued, " I wouldn't talk – what kind of name is 'Buffy', anyway? I've heard of _weeds_ with better names."

Buffy angrily got up from the cot, her head whirling, and then collapsed back down on it. One hand clutched her head, the other her stomach. "If you're not gonna' kill me, then go away," she moaned. "I think I'm gonna' be sick."

Spike made a face. "Gladly." He turned away. At the door he stopped and looked back at her. "By the way, Slayer, I meant what I said. Try to escape and I'll nail your bloody feet to the floor."

The visual was enough to make her scramble up and dive for the toilet.

Spike chuckled evilly as he slammed the door shut behind him.

~*~

Buffy cracked the big vampire across it's skull with the short steel bar she'd painstakingly worked up from the cot springs. He fell back onto the floor, and she smiled grimly, picking up the end of the heavy cot and lifting the end of it over the vamps neck. She slammed it down, hard, and heard a satisfying crunch as it's head was severed. It dusted without a sound.

It hadn't been hard luring one of the vampires guarding her inside her room with a claim that she was sick, and needed a doctor – she'd been throwing up nearly all day, after all, especially after seeing the tray of food they expected her to eat. She kicked the door shut on the other vamps outside, and hefted the steel bar above her head again.

There was a noise outside the door and she heard someone say, "What the hell was that? Where's Abe?" The door opened again, and three more vamps spilled inside, growling and snarling.

Buffy pushed down her nausea, which she was beginning to suspect was from some sort of concussion, and concentrated on her remaining strength.

One down,  three to go… 

~*~

Buffy opened the first door she came to an inch or two. Under the dim orange glare of an outdoor light she saw the glow of a cigarette, then the outline of two vampire guards leaning against the exterior wall.

She closed the door. What was she going to do now? She couldn't leave, not with the two vampires there. They'd make to much noise before she could take them down. Cautiously she made her way through the crates to the opposite side of the building. She found another exit and peered out. The door opened into a narrow passage between two buildings. No sign of a guard here. 

Buffy bolted.

~*~

Spike leaned against the railing of the catwalk leading up to his bedroom, and lit up a cigarette.

He'd just risen for the night, but he hadn't slept all day. He'd been too busy wondering what the hell he was going to do with the Slayer. He'd spoken to a few contacts earlier about her, and learned she hadn't even been reported missing yet.

Shifting, he flicked some ashes from his cigarette and absently watched a puff of smoke drift toward toward the roof.

Lucius had been infuriated when he'd told him he had no immediate plans to kill her. He'd claimed it would be too dangerous to keep her alive.

"We keep her _alive_," he'd told the other vampire with a cold glance.

"She's the Slayer, Master," Lucius had grunted with strained patience. "If she frees herself – "

"I know she's the Slayer, you moron. Look, it's simple enough. What happens when we kill her?"

Lucius's eyes lit up in understanding. "Another is Called."

"Exactly. What better way to keep the bloody Slayers off our backs? Just think of it – we keep this one an indoor kitty, and the world is our plaything for at least fifty years."

Spike looked out over the now empty warehouse. Once it had become known the Slayer was as good as dead, nearly every creature mucking about the place had gleefully hightailed it – and good riddance.

One of the guards passed by underneath him. He spoke absently to the other vampire, but his thoughts were still on the Slayer.

His cigarette had burned itself down to nothing, and he tossed the butt away.

The night was quiet. It was time for him to go out. He was descending the walk when he caught a movement in the shadows below. With a low growl he vaulted the remaining distance to the floor and landed lightly on his feet.

Spike didn't even bother calling an alarm – she was moving too fast now for any but him to catch her. He caught a glimpse of his escaped Slayer as she broke out of one of the exits, and sprinted into the night.

The area surrounding the warehouse was populated by deserted factories and tiny neighborhoods long-ago slated for demolition. The whole of it was riddled with countless alleyways and wide open sewer entrances. If she got too far into the labyrinth, he'd be hard pressed to find her. She'd go to ground like a frightened kitten.

She was rounding a corner now, running like the wind.

Spike slipped silently along behind her, every sense acute, grinning as the joy of the hunt sent adrenaline flooding through him. As the distance between them shortened, his instinct took over, and he could see and hear every detail about the night around him.

The girl was close to an alley entrance now, but she didn't have a chance of escaping him. He saw the flash of her legs as she ran through a cloud of steam streaming from a manhole, and he saw her look over her shoulder at him. Her expression was white and terrified in the dingy light.

Spike caught her by the waving banner of her long hair just as she reached the dark alley. She made a sound in her throat, but she didn't scream.

For a moment he felt the thundering of her heart against his chest, heard her gasping breath in his ears. He chuckled lowly in her ear and she pushed violently against him, pulled away from him and ran on.

"Call the game, Slayer," he called after her. "Admit it, you know it's over."

~*~

Buffy ran. She didn't think. She just ran.

She was about a block from the warehouse now, in a neighborhood the likes of which she in her sheltered existence had never seen. All around her there were dilapidated houses, overgrown lawns, and rusted, burnt out vehicles. It was like some kind of post-apocalyptic nightmare.

She was running harder, faster than she ever had before in her life, trying her best to disappear into the twilight. She knew – just knew – that he was coming for her. Buffy veered off into a neglected looking yard, heading for an impossibly narrow alley between two crumbling, deserted houses. She whipped through rotting clapboard and rusted nails, her ears protesting at the sounds that were giving her away.

Buffy almost ran face first into the wall before she saw it.

Panting, her vision blurring, she looked up – and up. She saw that she'd run into a trap of her own making. Entering this alley had been a deadly mistake. She was surrounded on three sides by a concrete wall that had to be at least twenty-five feet high, and was topped by rusty orange razor-wire. The sounds of fast-moving traffic on some road or another could be heard on the other side.

It took her less than a minute to realize she would never get over the wall alive.

It took less than that for the vampire to find her.

Feeling his presence like a dousing of icy water along her spine, Buffy turned to face him, trembling from head to toe.

Spike stood in front of her, his posture deceptively lazy, both hands tucked into his duster pockets.

"Running away, pet? Here I'd thought we'd already agreed you were my…guest."

She flattened herself against the wall.

Spike walked toward her slowly. He wasn't in any kind of hurry. For the first time in over a year he was truly enjoying himself.

 "You really are new at this, aren't you? Running into a blind alley," he drawled. He shook his head…and swung a fist at her face. 

~*~

Buffy ducked and kicked out at his head…

…and he caught her foot in one hand, stopping it in mid-air.

She gasped and he drove another punch straight at her. With her leg captured, she couldn't dodge it. She'd never been hit so hard in her entire life. It was like getting struck by a semi. Buffy went flying through the air and into the alley wall.

The world was spinning around her as she staggered up, leaning on the wall. 

Spike stepped up to her, and she set her jaw, faking a left. When he moved to avoid it she brought up her right and punched him in the nose. He howled and grabbed at it, cursing, and then, with fire in his eyes, he dropped his hands and lunged at her.

Buffy caught his wrist, spinning, and brought her elbow up into his chin. Her movements were too quick for her to follow after that; she was running on pure adrenaline and intuition by that point.

The vampire grunted, blocked another punch to his face, and instantly retaliated with a palm strike.

She fell back, stunned, but quickly recovered and dropped onto her hand, using it as an axis to pivot her entire body. Her feet swept the vampire's feet out from under him. He landed flat on his back.

To her eternal surprise he laughed aloud.

_'He's enjoying this,'_ Buffy thought incredulously.

"You know you've got quite a punch for a feather-weight."               

Just as he was scrambling to his feet, Buffy kicked him in the chest. He fell back, and she whirled to kick out at him again – but when she turned around he was gone.

There was nothing in the alley but trash and steam.

A prickling sensation moved along her spine as she slowly turned in a circle, looking cautiously around. All she could hear was the sound of traffic and her own harsh breathing. 

The weird sensation continued along her spine, convincing her he hadn't left. She was fast starting to recognize the feeling. It seemed to come upon her whenever…

Spike was around.

Buffy didn't see where he was, but she found herself turning toward her left all the same. Her eyes flew wide as her mind had the time to register the shape of a man in a long black coat before he jumped at her. 

Her yelp of surprise was cut off by the hand he slammed against her mouth. Caught off balance, her arms flailed as he shoved her against the wall. 

"Be a good girl, or I'll have to hurt you again," he whispered harshly in her ear.

Buffy lifted her hands to push him away, but he caught her wrists.

"Had no idea you'd be such a hellcat," he said, sounding pleased.

She bucked against him, trying to free herself. He lifted his hand from her mouth. She sucked in air to yell, but stopped when she realized there was no one around to hear.

Spike laughed, deep and low, and flipped her around to her stomach, pushing her against the wall. Sharp pain ran through her nerves as he yanked her wrists together.

Fear clawed at her as she struggled to draw air into her lungs. An ache pounded in her temples as she pushed against him. 

Spike pulled the bandage off her wounded wrist and used it to knot her hands together behind her back. He then caught her shoulder and pulled her around. She caught a glimpse of his snarling smile before he dragged her off the wall and bent slightly, slinging her over his shoulder. Her hair fell into her face as he sauntered off, carrying her down the alleyway.

Buffy closed her tired eyes and sighed.

What was he going to do to her now?

~*~

To be Continued in Chapter Five 

**~*~**

**Next:**


	5. 5

Buffy The Vampire Slayer – Broken Origin I 

**~*~**

**Author: **Dev Nine-Asher

~*~

**Disclaimer:** I own NOTHING! ****

**~*~**

**Chapter Five**

~*~

The Slayer was too quiet on the long walk back. It made him suspicious, so Spike jostled her roughly on his shoulder, smiling briefly as he heard the air leave her lungs. She gave a low moan, and he heard the silky slide of her hair against his duster as she turned her head.

"Just in case you're thinking of trying something before we get back to the warehouse, I think you ought to know there are quite a few nasties with nests in this area. Even if you do get away from me again, you stumble across some slimy Vyrtek demons eggs, you'll be forfeit one head and find your innards home to a bouncing baby slug, get my meaning?"

In answer, she tried to land a kick to his groin, and an elbow to his face. Both movements were pathetically weak, and they only served to make him annoyed.

"Ought to be thanking me for coming after you, you know," he told her as he stepped around a pile of debris. "You'd never have made it out of here alive…if that was even your intention. Bloody walking contradiction is what you are. One minute you're begging for your life, the next you're willing to throw it away on some great drooling lump of flesh and fangs that don't even know what a Slayer is."

The girl made an effort to lift her head. "Never…beg you…for _anything_."

Spike's lips twisted. "Yeah, right." He adjusted her over his shoulder and she groaned.

"Gonna' be sick," she said warningly, and the thought of her spilling her guts down his back had him dropping her like a rock, before he even thought about the fact that it was probably a trick.

The girl was stumbling, off running the second her feet touched down.

Spike's jaw tightened as he looked after her, an infuriated growl rising in his throat. He clamped his teeth together as he watched her disappear back the way they'd come, this time taking a different route.

He ought to just let her go. She was headed down a series of alleyways that ended in certain death. The packs of Vyrtek and Oryaggi that inhabited the empty, falling down structures would gnaw her bones for an early breakfast, and he could walk back home and forget about her until the next pain in the ass crossed his path.

It didn't sound like a half-bad plan, actually…

He dug in his pockets until he came up with his cigarettes and lighter, and lit up, staring into the darkness until he heard the inevitable, bloodcurdling scream.

The sound made him smile.

~*~

Buffy fled through the obstacle littered alleys, the shrieking sounds of the demons chasing her ringing in her ears.

She'd stumbled into a nest, just as the vampire had warned her she would. She'd instinctively snapped the delicate long neck of the primordial-looking gray demon that had lunged at her with a spinning kick, and had ended up being chased by a handful of others just like it, bigger ones that seemed to be out for vengeance. Their howling shrieks chilled her to the bone.

Her breath sobbed in her chest as she felt her foot slide on damp wooden debris. She almost fell, her hands still being tied behind her back not helping her balance any. She rounded another corner, only to be faced with yet another long alley. Had she come this way already? She couldn't tell; everything looked the same in the dark.

There was a scrabbling sound on the pavement behind her, and one of the demons moved in so close she could feel the stirring of air as it reached out for her, and missed. She didn't dare take the time to look back.

Buffy saw the dimly lit street she'd left the vampire on at the end of the alley, and put on a burst of desperate speed as she neared it. If she could get out into the open, free her hands, find some kind of weapon, maybe – 

She winced as she ran headlong into Spike. She didn't really know it was him by seeing, but if she had any doubts, they disappeared right along with his exaggerated, overly-disgusted sounding sigh.

Buffy's gaze flickered up, caught the open expression of annoyance across his hard features, saw his blue eyes narrow with the frown that pulled his dark brows together over the bridge of his nose.

For having just managed to escape him, he looked extremely unhappy to see her all but back in his clutches, and for an instant she felt strangely insulted. Then she heard her demon pursuers crash around the corner, howling and shrieking and snarling, and she saw the vampire roll his eyes.

Buffy whirled around, breathing hard, eyes widening at the sight of four of the gray demons grouped several feet away, small heads moving sinuously on their necks as they sniffed the air and chirped at one another, angrily clicking and slashing their sharply curved claws. She realized they'd paused, and weren't coming any closer, and she took a few cautious steps back, her arm bumping the vampire's.

Spike made another sound of disgust and stepped away from her. "Well, lads, what are you waitin' for?" he called invitingly. "She's standin' right here. Come'n get it."

Buffy's mouth fell open as she turned her head to glare at the vampire, who just shrugged, and took a draw of the lit cigarette in his hand.

"More trouble than you're worth, Slayer. Besides, I let this lot have a tasty morsel now and again, they stay nice and peaceable-like when my kind have to pass through here."

Buffy looked back at the silver-eyed demons with a weak whimper. "B-but you said – "

Spike shook his head and flicked his cigarette away, exhaling smoke through his nose.

"Said what? Sorry, _Buffy_, pet, but I decided you're too high-maintenance a breed for me. Kennel's closed." 

The demons slowly started forward, their beak-shaped snouts peeling back to reveal mottled green gums, and several jagged rows of teeth, similar to a shark's. The smell of rotten meat that accompanied their heaving breaths just about knocked Buffy over. She fought back a gag and immediately started looking around for a weapon. For all the debris she'd passed, there was nothing but a few fallen shingles and dented, rusted out trash cans immediately at hand.

"You - you're kidding, right? Trying to teach me some kind of lesson? You aren't really just going to go off and l-leave me here with them, right?" She contemplated running for a minute, but look at how far that had gotten her. She risked a look over her shoulder at the vampire, only to discover that he'd disappeared from where he'd been standing.

Feeling oddly betrayed, Buffy whipped her head back around just as the pack of demon's rushed her.

Before she even knew what was happening, an arm wrapped around her waist and jerked her backward. She stumbled against a hard male back before she steadied herself, and looked up in confusion to see the vampire standing in front of her, blocking her from the demons with his body.

What the - ?

"She's mine," she heard Spike say, totally without conviction. "Any of you lot touches her, I kill you, got it?"

One of the demons chattered loudly, and Spike shook his head. "No good, mate. She's too skinny for your tastes anyway – what say I send you a nice juicy toddler in a few days, eh?"

The demon made a sound between a snarl and squawk, but slowly began to withdraw. In a moment the gray monsters were gone, and Spike growled, and turned on her, hands raised, his fangs bared. He looked like he wanted to kill her.

With her muddled mind, all Buffy could think of to say was a totally appalled, "You aren't really going to feed them a _baby_, are you?"

~*~

"Master! The Slayer is missing!" a guard was shouting when they arrived back at the warehouse.

"S'alright," Spike called back in bored amusement,  "I've got her." He shoved the Slayer ahead of him, watching the beaten girl stumble and fall into a crumpled, exhausted pile on the floor.

The guard rushed up, wincing in pain and eyeing the Slayer. Even though she was clearly incapacitated, Spike noticed he careful to give her a wide berth as he approached. "I-I don't know how she got away. She moved so quickly! Three of the others were slain, and I just woke up. I think she dislocated my fucking shoulder."

Spike looked the guard over. He had a black eye and a bloodied lip, and seemed to be nursing much more than just a dislocated shoulder. A ragged strip of muscle and splintered bone showed at the jointure of his neck and shoulder.

Clearly he'd dangerously underestimated the extent of her natural abilities. She'd taken down three of his best, and probably permanently crippled a fourth…and all without so much as a splinter in sight. If she'd had a weapon, she probably could have taken down the Vyrtek's back in that alley, too, even if her hands had been tied.

_Clever little bitch. _

He had the feeling he was going to regret his impulsive decision to let her live. 

Spike looked down at the unconscious girl and mock-sighed. "Well, now. It's clear I can't trust anyone but me with your precious self, Slayer." He glanced over at the guard. "She'll be down for a while. I'm going out to eat something before I lose it and finish what I started on her."

"Perhaps you should finish it, Master."

Spike looked up to see Lucius towering over him, a smug glint in his eyes. He lifted a brow and deliberately ignored him, speaking again to the other guard. "Get somebody to haul her up to my room. And don't forget to use those soddin' chains on her this time."

~*~

Buffy awoke with a start, a sudden wrenching from sleep that left her heart racing and her breath coming in ragged gasps. She didn't remember what she'd been dreaming, but for some reason she was in pain. Not unbearable pain, but…

She was on her stomach, eyes closed, her left hand fisted next to her face. It took her a moment to pin down the discomfort she was feeling. She felt like she was burning up all over. Opening her eyes, slowly, she forced her hand open, and stared blearily at the bloody red half-moons dotting the palm. The tiny wounds stung fiercely.

She'd been dreaming about something bad, then.

"Slayer," hissed an unfamiliar voice.

Buffy looked up, and saw the big vamp that had shot her the night before with the tranquilizer standing above her, arms crossed over his chest.

"You should be dead," he sneered, glaring at her with hatred in his yellow demon eyes.

She ignored him, trying to find the strength to pull herself up, only to discover that she was chained to a concrete floor, heavy manacles around her wrists and ankles. There wasn't enough length in the links for her to even stand up, so she pulled herself into a sitting position and scooted back against a wall, her exhausted muscles shivering with the effort.

The vampire was still talking. " If I had my way, you'd be dead right now. I'd have broken your back and thrown you to the fledglings…but the Master seems to have other plans for you."

"Lucky me," Buffy muttered under her breath, letting her eyes flicker around the room. Something was wrong with her; she didn't feel right, not that she had since this whole mess had started. Her vision was fuzzy and distorted, and her hearing was weird, like everything was coming at her down a narrow tunnel. 

Ignoring the vampire, she distractedly looked around. She hadn't seen this room before, but from the messy look of the rusty red bed clothes, and the scattered overabundance of black garments and empty bottles strewn everywhere, she surmised she must be in Spike's room. It gave her the creeps to even think about why…and why he just happened to have chains in his bedroom. 

_Ew_.

She began to discreetly yank on the chains, searching for any kind of weak spot.

"Understand this, Slayer – if you try to escape again, I'll take great pleasure in hunting you down and making certain you do not have anything left with which to escape upon."

Feeling increasingly disassociated with her surroundings, Buffy looked up at the vampire with a deliberate eye-roll. "Yeah, whatever," she forced past her dry throat. "I could _so_ take you."

The vampire drew back a little, looking surprised, but then the sneer returned to his face. "I have lived for over four centuries, girl. I would break you in half."

Buffy bit back a painful smile as she felt a link begin to bend and give. Having super powers was mighty handy after all. Let her get her hand free and he'd see who'd be breaking whom. "Why don't you try it, then? Or are you scared of the Slayer?"

The big vampire's nostrils flared, but otherwise he didn't respond to her taunt.

The room was silent for long minutes while the vampire stood watch, and Buffy strained against her bonds. Finally, the link snapped, and it seemed loud in the quiet room.

The vampire charged her.

~*~

It seemed like a lot of time had passed.

Buffy woke up feeling extremely weak, and wasn't surprised to see Spike hovering over her. She also wasn't surprised to find her arms still chained, though she was currently in a bed. She squinted up at the vampire and asked hoarsely, "Lemme guess – still not dead?"

After three days and nights of watching her struggle through illness, Spike was almost relieved to see her wake up – the Slayer's silence was a definite improvement over her bloody mindless nattering on. He shook his head in the negative at her question.

"I'm told you made one hell of a scene the other night after I left," he said conversationally.

Her lips twitched, and for a moment some of the bleakness went out of her feverish gray-green eyes.

Spike tilted his head and studied her face. Her soft cheek was scratched and bruised, but quickly healing, and one corner of her mouth was still swollen.

"Lucius hurt you pretty bad," he commented in a cool voice, straightening up and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Lucius?"

"Yeah, big Neanderthal-looking bloke, stands up to about here?" Spike's hand lifted to the air above his head.

 Buffy's memory was fuzzy, but some things she could still remember clearly. "_Oh_…the hairy guy with the low forehead, and the uni-brow?"

Spike nodded, amused by her description. "Yeah, that'd be him."

She swallowed with difficulty, and brought a shaky hand up to her jaw. "Yeah, he hurt me, I guess. Not as much as I hurt him," she promised grimly.

"Yeah – saw the bone sticking out of his leg. Nice piece of work there."

The Slayer grinned smugly, but winced when the skin pulled over a healing cut on her lip. "Oh, I got him in a worse place, too, believe me. Even if I hadn't broken his leg, he'd still have been walking funny for a while, anyway – vampire or not."

"Yeah, well…you won't have to worry about him for a while. Don't think he'll be up to much of anything for some time. 'Sides, I told him I'd break him if he laid hands on you again."

Buffy looked up at him in disbelief. She lifted her arms to give the chains around her wrists a pointed clank. "You hurt me all the time. Why shouldn't he?"

Spike blinked a couple of times, then scowled and took a hasty step back from the bed.. "Because nobody touches you except me, that's why." He went to the door. "I'll have something sent up, if you think you can manage to eat without maiming anyone or trying to escape. Now you're awake, maybe you can start feeding your own bloody self."

**~*~**

It was nearly a week before she could attempt to leave again.

With one last glance around the room, she slipped out into the darkness of the warehouse.

Buffy made her way through the ominous silence and out onto the catwalk. With the guard talking to another vampire at the other end of the platform, she carefully but quickly lowered herself over the rail and dropped to the floor.

She could hear the sounds of music more clearly as she neared her goal. When she came up on the corner, she peered around it to see a small group of vamps seated on some crates, playing cards and drinking.

Once past them she could follow the other corridor she'd passed before - hopefully to her freedom. Although for all she knew it could lead to the bathroom…

Buffy studied her position for a few minutes, then decided the best thing to do would be to get as close to the wall as possible. She wouldn't be nearly as visible there if she moved through the room.

Quickly, quietly, she sprinted toward the opposite wall. When she reached it her heart beat so hard in her chest she had to wait a moment for it to calm, afraid the vampires would hear. Finally she began to creep forward. Behind her she heard voices. She heard Spike's voice, and he sounded happy about something – Buffy figured he wouldn't be in a good mood for very much longer. He was going to be totally pissed when he found his room empty, and she didn't want to be around when he came looking for her.

The voices grew nearer, and Buffy moved, casting quick, nervous glances at the guards. She barely dared to breathe. It sounded like Spike was heading this way; in a minute he'd reach her, and she have to make a run for it…

_'And that option worked _so_ well last time!'_

Buffy's hand touched a doorknob. She tugged, felt the door open a crack, and slipped inside.

The steps came closer, then the voices faded, and she was left alone in the darkness of the corridor. Buffy rummaged in her pocket for the lighter she'd found in a pair of Spike's discarded jeans – honestly, did he ever do his laundry? – and flicked it open, grateful for the small amount of light it gave.

She followed the strange corridor, wrinkling her nose at the 'old' odor of it. If she could just find a manhole, a sewer entrance, _something_…she couldn't go back to that place. It'd been maybe a week, and already the solitariness of it was killing her…

The silence lasted perhaps all of five minutes more before she heard a loud roar from far behind her.

_Uh-oh._

"I don't know why you bother to keep trying to escape me," Spike's furious voice echoed down the long, twisting  dark corridor after her. "You're never going to see the light of day again, you know that, don't you?"

Knowing he was after her again had her hands shaking so bad she dropped her only source of light. She dropped down and desperately groped around for it in the blackness, but to no avail. The lighter was gone.

Buffy got up continued edging onward. There were treacherous cracks in the stone floor, and some abrupt drop-offs, and Spike had the advantage in the total darkness. She could picture him hunting her down the twisting corridor, face ridged and twisted, all glittering gold eyes and white, jagged teeth…

~*~

Spike was ready to murder her.

No, maybe murder wasn't quite the right thing to do. He could always sell her, he supposed. Slayer blood, Slayer bones – hell, he knew a demon in Korea who'd pay a handsome price for just her hide. He didn't have to keep her alive, after all. He could make good use of her, and be well rid of the annoyance. He still couldn't understand why he hadn't let the demons have her after her first escape attempt, or why he hadn't just let her die in his bed days before. All he knew was that she had moved him somehow, with her innocence, in a way he couldn't – and didn't want to – understand. That made her unbelievably dangerous.

He wished he'd never laid eyes on her.

~*~

Buffy gone a fair enough distance, but Spike was a trained hunter – he could scent her. In what seemed like moments he had her in his arms, back against his chest, arms trapped under the crushing hold of his. She struggled persistently against the armlock.

"Keep fighting me and I'll have to knock you unconscious," he warned through clenched teeth.

Panicked, Buffy rammed her head back into his chin. "You'd love that, wouldn't you?" she sneered.

"'Course I would," Spike growled.

Buffy had never really been physically aggressive up until her parent's had been killed, but now that she knew what she was, her instincts kept exposing her long-hidden violent streak. She kept up the struggle.

Spike apparently, had had enough. "We'll bloody well do it your way, then."

"No – wait!" Buffy went still, her chin dropping onto her heaving chest. "I'll do whatever you want. Just…don't knock me out again. I'm scared I…won't wake up."

Spike was quiet for a long minute before he let her go. "Fine. Walk. If you're shamming me, I'll drop you in a crevice and forget about you, hear?"

"Yes." Buffy held her sore ribs in her hands and miserably began to shuffle off, listening to the vampire following along behind her.

~*~

Spike was furious. He didn't know how he held onto his temper as he directed the girl back up and out into the warehouse, and led her into his audience room. He closed the door and barred it once they were inside, and then the demon came unleashed.

"I should never have let you live, y'know," he said in a low growl as she turned to look up at him. He got an immense jolt of satisfaction when her eyes went wide at the sight of his gold eyes and sharp fangs. "Then I actually _cared_ for you when you were hurt. _You_ – a bloody Slayer. I knew better. Guess it's just a bad habit of mine. Just like Dru. I thought I'd learned my lesson then, y'know? When people think you're the slightest bit soft, they walk _all_ over you."

Buffy's eyes flickered all over the room, looking for some type of defense. There! She darted backwards and grabbed a wicked-looking dagger from where it had been bizarrely stuck in the wooden arm of a richly upholstered chair. She held it out in front of her, began backing up at the look in his eyes, but in another second Spike had her on her back, his knees bruising her shoulders, weighing her down so she couldn't move, or kick out. He looked down at her, evil gold eyes gleaming with satisfaction – and then they came to rest on her hair, which was covering half her face.. The sharp blades of his cheeks became more pronounced as he sucked his cheeks in, eyes thoughtful. "Can't fight proper with all that ruddy hair flyin' in your face, can you?" he finally observed. "Think maybe I can help you out with that, Slayer."

The words made her eyes widen even further. Her lips fell open.

Spike still had the dagger she'd attacked him with in his hand, and his lips twisted in a snarl of a smile, exposing his fangs as he held her chin brutally tight in one hand, and proceeded to hack off a good bit of the long blond locks fanned out on the concrete floor around her. 

~*~

When he was done, he backed off her, and Buffy numbly sat up, shaking in reaction to seeing that sharp, flashing blade repeatedly landing so close to her head. With trembling fingers she reached up to feel her hair, and then the tears spilled over. Where it had once almost reached her waist, it now barely brushed her shoulders. She sniffled, and suddenly Spike reached down and yanked her up onto her feet by her arm. For some reason he was furious again, but his face had lost it's ridges. It didn't make him any less scary, especially since his face kept darkening as the seconds ticked by.

"Stop crying," he demanded in an angry hiss, shaking her. "It's your fault, you shouldn't have tried to run away again! You think I'm not going to punish you for it?"

"I thought you said you were going to nail my feet to the floor, not re-style my hair," she finally said, the sarcastic humor in her bitterly calm voice surprising them both.                                                                                 

Spike shook his head and suddenly leaned over, throwing the red runner on the floor before his chair out of the way. A large square of age-spotted steel lay imbedded in the concrete, and he tugged hard on the iron ring set in it. The hatch opened with a screech, and Buffy got chills when she saw the flat blackness beyond it. A tinny-scented cold breeze slammed into her, making her shudder.

She looked down at Spike's face and started backing away, but he reached out and grabbed her wrist, and to her horror, yanked her right over the opening and simply dropped her in.

She hit the floor much sooner than she'd expected, and despite her loss of breath, scrambled up onto her feet, barely noting that the floor was dry stone, and not swamp-like like she'd dreaded.

"What are you doing?" she demanded. "Let me out!"

Spike stood above her and took his time lighting a cigarette, his hand curled around the flame of his lighter to protect it from the cold breeze. "It's your own fault, y'know. If you weren't all set on bein' such a scheming little bitch, I'd have tried to be all right to you. You can give up escaping from here, pet – there's no way out. Maybe a few weeks in here will make you appreciate what else I've offered."

"What _else_? Life alone in a tiny, airless room, water from the sink, and half-cooked oatmeal twice a day? I don't think so!"

"We'll see what you think about it in a few days, love – say, three? I reckon that half-cooked oatmeal is going to start looking like a bloody gourmet meal by then – that is, if you don't decide on a sudden hankering for the rats down there, first."

Buffy's eyes dropped to flicker around the dark space, envisioning hundreds of beady little eyes staring at her.

Eat a _rat_? Yuck! As if!

"Gotta' go, Slayer. Hope you enjoy your stay."

Buffy realized it was going to be pitch black when he closed the trapdoor, but she tried to shrug off her long-standing terror of the dark, and made a joke instead. "What, no nightlight?"

Spike smiled thinly, and reaching up, he slowly pulled the half-finished cigarette from between his lips. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger for a moment, dark humor glinting in his eyes, before he flicked it down past her head. A stream of white-hot orange ash filtered stingingly against the skin of her forearm before she could move aside.

Buffy looked at the glowing tip of the cigarette on the dirt floor, and then turned her face back up to his, which was framed in the candlelit square of the room behind him. She glared at him fiercely, but he only cocked his head at her and rose from his crouching position, hand still on the door, preparing to let it drop closed. 

"One day I'm going to kill you for doing this," she told him harshly, becoming a little panicked at the thought of being left alone.

Spike's shadowed blue eyes lit with understanding, and he gave her mocking look. "Aw, is the wee Slayer afraid of the dark?"

Buffy crossed her arms, stared up at him with a dirt smudged face, and said nothing.

His voice lost its teasing edge. "Then you shouldn't have tried to run away from me twice. By rights I coulda' killed you the first time." 

"My God, do you have abandonment issues! But you know, you really should have," she agreed in a darkly promising tone. "You should have killed me when I asked."

"Hey, you're the one asking for death, here. You say _I_ have issues? Cheer up, then. I can promise you, by the time I let you out of this place, you won't give a sod about being left alone in the dark. Fact is, time'll come when you bloody well crave it, just like the rest of us."

Buffy's rage rose to the surface, showed plainly on her face. Her fine nostrils flared as she shook her shorn hair out of her eyes. "I'll never be _anything_ like you."

"You're wrong, you know." Spike said this in such a serious manner that it frightened her. "You're just like me. You're as much of a killer, as much of a monster as I am. Who you think it is that gives the little demon sprogs nightmares, girl? S'not me."

_Killer..._ Hiding a shudder, Buffy turned her back on him, hugging herself. "Go to Hell," she told him in a hate-filled whisper.

Spike's voice was cruel, heavy, and soft like suffocating black velvet wrapping around her when he spoke again. "Already there, pet, didn't you know? And lucky girl that you are, you're right here with me."

Rusty hinges squeaked. Buffy squeezed her eyes shut tight so she wouldn't have to see the light disappear.

"Welcome to my world, Slayer."

The trapdoor slammed shut, and Buffy was left in the dark with only the scent of burning tobacco, and the ringing sound of metal on metal echoing in her ears.

~*~

To be Continued in Chapter Six 

~*~

**Next**:_ For a long time Buffy stood in a corner of her drafty prison, ear's straining for the sound of the rats Spike had claimed inhabited the place. After a while she thought that maybe if she found the source of the breeze, she might find some avenue of escape. She began running her hands over the walls, which were made of cold, wet stone, shuffling her feet along the floor in an effort to scare off anything small, furry, and bite-y in her path._

_It didn't take long for her to realize that there really was no escape. The breeze came from small fissures in the stone, but when she'd tried to dig the rocks loose, she'd discovered it to be hopeless. The walls were solid._

_Sinking down onto the floor, she covered her face with her hands, willing away her fear of the dark. Looking for a way out had kept her mind off it, but now that there was obviously no way out, it was closing in on her._

_God, she hated Spike._

_Buffy drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins, wishing her mom was with her again. She'd always been the only one able to chase the monsters away…_

_…but she was gone, now, and Buffy was slowly coming to understand that no matter how much she might want her mother, there were reasons why people shouldn't come back from the dead._

~*~

(Thanks for reading!)


	6. 6

Buffy The Vampire Slayer – Broken Origin I 

**Author:** Dev Nine-Asher

**Disclaimer: **I own _NOTHING_!

**A/N:** Thanks to all for the much-needed feedback and prompting. Apologies for the lack of updates – and the filler chapter. Annoying, but necessary. BTW,   indicate 'flashback' moments.

~*~

Chapter Six 

~*~

For a long time Buffy stood in a corner of her drafty prison, ear's straining for the sound of the rats Spike had claimed inhabited the place. After a while she thought that maybe if she found the source of the breeze, she might find some avenue of escape. She began running her hands over the walls, which were made of cold, wet stone, shuffling her feet along the floor in an effort to scare off anything small, furry, and bite-y in her path.

It didn't take long for her to realize that there really was no escape. The breeze came from small fissures in the stone, but when she'd tried to dig the rocks loose, she'd discovered it to be hopeless. The walls may have been damp, but they were solid.

Sinking down onto the floor, she covered her face with her hands, willing away her fear of the dark. Looking for a way out had kept her mind off it, but now that there was obviously no way out, it was closing in on her.

God, she hated Spike.

Buffy drew her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins, wishing her mom was with her again. She'd always been the only one able to chase the monsters away…

…but she was gone, now, and Buffy was slowly coming to understand that no matter how much she might want her mother, there were reasons why people shouldn't come back from the dead.

Merrick had told her why, tried to warn her…but it had taken a master vampire called Spike to show her.

~*~

Spike stood above the hatch for a time, waiting to hear the Slayer's hysteria erupt. He frowned when no sounds were forthcoming, and then mulishly kicked the runner back over the door and threw himself into his chair, legs sprawling.

He supposed he ought to be relaxing now, knowing that there was no escape from the room below, and the Slayer would actually be staying put at last; but there was no relaxation to be found when it came to that one. He was on edge and had been ever since she'd arrived, and it was unlikely he was going to know any peace at all until she was good and dead.

Spike found himself glaring with murderous intensity at the spot on the floor before his chair, and abruptly stood up, suddenly ready to end it. What had he been thinking? He was a vampire, she was a Slayer – he killed her kind. And he _liked_ it. He thrived on the challenge, the diversion of it. Why should he go to the trouble to keep her alive when he got such a thrill out of hunting those like her?

On the verge of violently ripping open the hatch and making a hasty meal of the girl, Spike cursed when a heavy knock came on the door. He stalked forward and unlocked it, swinging it open wide. Lucius stood outside, and Spike immediately felt his mood darken even more.

"What the hell do _you_ want?" Spike raked his gaze over the larger vampire, taking immense satisfaction in the sight of the still healing wounds both he and the Slayer had inflicted on the big, ugly wanker.

"Forgive me…Master," Lucius said grudgingly. "I've heard that the Slayer has escaped…_again_."

Spike opened his mouth, but a very muffled, panicked yell from the cell below caught his ear, and he tilted his head, listening.

"_Let me out! Let me out, let me out, let – me – out!"_

Spike caught the other vampire's eye, and quickly read the expression of dismay and disbelief that flashed across his face. Lucius almost looked disappointed.

Gleefully, Spike went over and flipped the carpet away again. He knelt down on one knee and rapped his knuckles on the steel of the hatch, making a show of listening intently. "What's the matter, Slayer? Did you say something? You're too quiet. Don't get out as much as you used to, eh?" He looked up at Lucius and arched a questioning brow. "Sound like she escaped to you?"

Instead of answering, Lucius gave a tight nod, his eyes hooded and face set in sour, ugly lines. "Clearly I heard wrong."

Spike straightened up slowly. "Yeah…_clearly_ you did."

Spike looked at him with a steely, condescending glint in his eyes that clearly made Lucius regret his challenging tone of voice. The vampire shifted uncomfortably on his damaged leg, and then lowered his eyes, managing a slight bow at the waist. "Master. There is something else I wished to speak with you about."

"Yeah?" Spike bent over and retrieved his dagger from the mess of the Slayer's hair on the floor, his thumb testing its sharpness. The silver blade glinted in the candlelight as he turned it this way and that. "And what would that be?"

Lucius cleared his throat with a low rumble. "There have been reports that the Slayer's absence is being investigated by her people. I have reason to believe she is being searched for."

Spike lifted his eyes from the blade and snorted. "That lot of fat old coffin dodgers? Please. I've dealt with 'em before. They couldn't find their collective ass to scratch it." His voice turned mocking. "Don't worry your pretty lit'l head about it."

A slight snarl appeared on the larger vampire's meaty face. "I have heard rumors from the street demons that many of their number have been bribed for information by several humans…and then slaughtered when their usefulness has ended."

"What's all this about, then?" Spike scowled, growing impatient. "The notion of a couple of tweed-clad grandpa's toting crosses and holy water got you all nervous? Listen, I know I come across as being all open and sensitive, but sorry, really not the hand-holding type. I'm contrary like that."

"The Slayer is becoming too much of a danger to us. I think we should finish her. The others are of the same opinion. The Council of Watchers is getting too close, and to keep our hold on the city, we cannot afford the further depletion of our numbers."

Spike's eyes flickered up again. His tone was deceptively good-natured. "You questioning me, Luc?"

Lucius's stony silence more than answered for him.

"That's what I thought." Spike flipped the heavy dagger in his hand, holding it now by it's blade. "You do good work, Luc. You've always been loyal – as loyal as one of us can be, anyways. You're a decent minion…but I don't keep you around to do the thinking. You take your orders from me, you do the dirty work, _that's_ what I keep you around for. Aside from that, mate, you're just another dust-bunny waiting to happen."

Something glinted in the candlelight, a slight breeze stirring the air near his ear. Lucius turned his head to look at the blade suddenly deeply embedded in the wall next to his head.

"Now, then. Any more questions?" Spike crossed his arms, and jerked his head toward the hatch in the floor. "I've got a Slayer to torture, here."

Lucius slowly looked back,  a mutinous gleam in his yellow eyes. "No…_Master_," he fairly spat. "No more 'questions'. I'll leave you to it."

Still staring him down, Spike gave a slight nod. "Yeah. Why don't you do that then?"

"Forgive me for interrupting, Master."

Spike watched after the other vampire as he left, and shook his head. He'd always known Lucius would eventually cause trouble, and it seemed as if the arrival of the Slayer was going to be a perfect excuse. The surly vamp had originally served under Lothos, after all. It had only been a matter of time before the bloody behemoth decided to try rubbing his two remaining brain cells together and take over.

Spike glared at the square of metal set in the floor. The girl was quiet now, too quiet for his liking, though he didn't doubt that with her fear of the dark she was suffering – he'd just loved to have heard her begging to be let out some more. Now _that_ was entertainment.

Sighing, Spike turned to leave the room. The night had held such promise only an hour before. He'd finally gotten his car back from the garage he'd sent it to, and the lady had never looked so good. The only thing was, the fresh interior still held the faint, but unmistakable odor of having been burned, like blackened toast.

Lips twisting sourly, Spike ignored the curious looks of the minions he passed outside, and headed back the way he'd come in earlier. He was still in the mood for a fight. If Luc was right, and the Wanker's council was snooping around L.A., intent on sniffing out the Slayer, he was going to have to do some hunting of his own. No matter how much of a pain the girl was, or how many times he came within a hair of killing her, she was proving to be the most interesting thing to come his way in a long while. Perversely, he wasn't quite ready to give her up.

~*~

Several hours later, Spike exited the demon bar in a very, very bad mood. It hadn't been the first place he'd visited tonight and run into nothing but more of the same. Whatever Luc was planning, he'd at least been telling him the truth about the Slayer's keepers sniffing around for her. From what he'd heard from most of the street demons, they were getting close to pinpointing Spike's very own little spot of Hell – too close, in fact. It wasn't going to be long before something finally broke down and spouted off the Slayer's exact location. He hadn't exactly been keeping it a closely guarded secret, after all. He'd been enjoying the notoriety too much to keep everything hushed up. His constant need for attention had become his curse once again.

Standing in a stinking, rotting trash littered alley, Spike paused to light up a cigarette, and stood contemplating the graffiti littered walls…and the fucked up mess his existence had become.

~*~

She couldn't have any idea of how many hours or even days, had passed, but apparently her Slayer instincts still knew when the sun rose and set. During the late hours of the morning after Spike had thrown her into the cell, Buffy tried vainly to remember what she had once read, about how long a person could live without food and water. Was it three days without water, and seven without food? Or was it the other way around? And did it really even apply to her since she had Slayer strength? Oh, God – what if Spike forgot about her, and just left her down here? Would she, like, waste away extra slow because she was stronger then most girls? It was a terrifying prospect.

Even more terrifying, what was she going to do when she finally broke down and had to, like, 'do her business', or whatever?__

Buffy paused in pacing the confines of her cell. She'd been making herself constantly move across the space, to prove to her rattled brain that there was nothing sharing it with her, to ensure that she wouldn't fall asleep and have an almighty freak-out when she woke up to nothing but the blackness. She now directed her horrified, unseeing stare towards one of the cold, dank corners, and shuddered.

Starvation and Vampires, she could handle, she quickly decided, but the complete lack of indoor plumbing and sanitation was almost enough to send her shouting, banging on the walls in protest again.

With way too much time on her hands, and her hunger and thirst becoming a very real issue, Buffy found herself sitting on the floor against one of the walls, thinking back over the past weeks. She didn't want to think, it was the last thing on earth she wanted to do, because when she stopped long enough to do it, the monsters came back, and she wasn't just thinking about the imaginary ones in the darkness. The monsters were her memories, kept pushed to the back of her mind, contained in their own private little hell. Outside, in the pain and madness of her other prisons, she'd at least at the distraction of being able to see, and hear – in here, there was nothing but the quiet and the dark, like a sensory deprivation chamber. All she was left with was the pain inside, her thoughts that ate away at the wall closing them in. Unwilling, but hungry and thirsty and weak, Buffy sat against her wall and closed her eyes as the memories began to spill through, one by one…

~*~

**_Flashback_**

~*~

The day had started out normal, well, as normal as it could be for her after not having slept a wink all night. She'd stumbled through her shower and a couple of cherry pop-tarts, and her mom had driven her to school as usual. Her mother had been cheerful and chatty, but years of practice had Buffy seeing right through her. The extreme dismay the older woman had been feeling at her husband's unexpected 'business' trip showed clearly on her face. Lines of strain shadowed her forehead and mouth, and her hands clutched at the steering wheel in a way that told Buffy she was either very pissed or hurting so badly she felt the need to cling to something.

Buffy had always loved her father, but in that moment she'd found herself wishing, just for an angry, frightening instant, that he'd never come back,  that his plane would crash and he'd get what he deserved for cheating on her mom…

School seemed weird after what she'd learned the night before. She met her friends at the entrance, listened to their chatter and gossip with half an ear, and walked with them dream-like through the common area. She was finding it hard to connect to the bright safety of the day when she knew what was coming when darkness fell.

If she'd barely been making it through her classes before, any tests she took that morning were doubtless guaranteed failures. 

Worries weighing heavily on her, she collapsed at her table at lunch with a bottle of  water and sighed with relief. Honestly, who used Algebra anyway?

Buffy's friends showed up shortly after, and she couldn't help but feel like they were staring at her like she was some kind of freak. She knew they couldn't possibly know what had happened to her, but there was no denying that they knew something was up. She looked up from her absent study of the table surface more than once to see them looking at her and talking behind their hands to each other – which made her all the more determined not to miss her practice later. Sure, there were evil things that needed killing, but she'd only been the Slayer for one day and already it was destroying her carefully cultivated social life!

~*~

It was weird in the extreme to be able to smell the night coming. 

Buffy mulled over this later, as she rushed up the steps of the old, closed hotel where Merrick was apparently staying. Had she always had the ability, and just not known it?

At any rate, it had kind of freaked her out – but what about the last days hadn't? And now this…

Buffy huffed slightly as she found not a single one of the front doors in the once grand old hotel open. She frowned as she peered through dingy glass and askew blinds, and used one knuckle to knock. Geez, she was late, yeah, but better late than never, right? And was it really her fault that she hadn't been able to find the place? Was it her fault she couldn't find the address he'd given her?

Well, yeah, maybe, but she'd eventually remembered the name of the hotel printed across the top of the card Merrick had given her, hadn't she? A quick call to information had given her the address as well. At least now she had a legitimate excuse for being so late – kind of. 

Buffy knocked again and then kicked the door in frustration. All that rushing to get out of practice, and the guy wasn't even here!

After a few minutes, she left the front of the building and crossed around to the back, where she found a heavy steel door proclaiming Laundry Delivery in faded, stenciled white letters. It was standing half open, and instead of being glad to find a way inside, something about the sight gave her major wiggins.

Easing through the space, careful not to touch the door in case it had squeaky hinges, Buffy dropped her gym bag on the tattered linoleum floor inside the entrance, and took out her stake. She took a few steps forward, her Nike's not making a sound on the dingy floor, her eyes darting around her poorly-lit surroundings, making out a staircase here, a huge pile of graying rags there…

…and then her foot slipped.

Catching herself, Buffy pulled her foot back, and automatically looked down. The sight on the floor within the pool of dim light coming from an upper stairwell gave her actual chills.

Her eyes were wide, fixed on the smeared, sticky pool of red at her feet, when a small  movement at the edge of the light made her move. The stake clattered to the floor as she launched herself across the space, landing hard on her knees next to the man half-obscured by the pile of graying rags.

"Oh my God! Merrick!"

"When most vampires' kill, they don't just drain their victims and leave."

The man was on his back, blood spattering the front of his suit, a gory slash on the side of his neck sluggishly depositing a winding trail of blood to the floor, which collected in the widening pool she'd slipped in.

"They aren't anything so simple as murderers."

Buffy sobbed, putting her hands over her mouth to keep from being ill. She saw the twitch of his fingers out of the corner of her eye, and dropped her hands, leaning over him to see his eyes wide open and staring at her.

"Merrick, I'm sorry," she whispered, shaking her head. "All my fault…"

"You haven't yet seen a victim. You don't know the horror of it, the…the violation of being leeched by a demon."

He blinked.

Buffy gasped. "Merrick? Thank God! Let me call 911 – "

"Too...late," came the rasping breath. "Dead…already."

Buffy shook her head, until her eyes came to rest on his mouth, the bristle of his mustache, the blood on his suit. Her mind registered the darker color and consistency of it, and she sat back on her heels, horrified. 

"It is in their nature to hunt, to torture and kill – and sometimes, to add to their number. When they exchange blood with a victim, they leave much more than just a corpse behind…"

"Oh, no. No…"

"Make sure…don't…back," Merrick's lips barely moved, but Buffy knew what he was telling her to do.

"Merrick? No," she shook her head. "No, I can't…you can't ask me to do that."

"Duty," he ground out, his eyes fierce. "Back…not same. Hear? Not…same. Wr-wrong."

"You don't yet understand the evil they stem from, don't yet know the monster, the nature of the beasts."

Buffy shook her head violently, tears leaking from her eyes, but Merrick's eyes held hers steadily. 

"Head…heart," he breathed sternly. "Duty."

When they exchange blood with a victim, they leave much more than just a corpse behind…

She couldn't do it! She couldn't ever! "Oh, God, Merrick, please!"

The fierceness drained from the older man's eyes as he stared up at her. "Duty."

Buffy barely heard the harsh, gurgling whisper over the strong, strident voice reverberating in her head.

"…they leave much more than just a corpse…"

Wide-eyed and stricken, Buffy shakily hauled herself up. She moved, staring straight ahead, trembling as she slowly retrieved her stake. 

"…much more than just a corpse…"

A glint caught her eye, and she moved her head to see the broken glass of an emergency case set into the wall. A heavy red firefighter's axe hung half out of the opening, and she reached out blindly, unblinking, to take it into her hands. Turning back to the older man on the floor, she fought not to fall to her knees again.

"…just a corpse…"

After the last rattling breath died in the man's throat, Buffy's nostrils flared as she swallowed, hard, swiped an arm over her nose and cheeks – and hefted the heavy axe.

~*~

_"I don't get it. Why do I have to be the Slayer? I mean, why can't you just do it? You already know lots more about it than me anyway."_

_"Because you were born with the potential, and I was not. It is your birthright. I'm afraid the burden is on your shoulders now…"_

~*~

Buffy slumped across the door she'd entered only a few minutes earlier, shaking in reaction to what she'd just done. She'd been sick, after, so sick…

Merrick was dead. It brought home a reality that she'd been ignoring ever since she'd learned of her calling. Vampires were real, they were evil, and they were out there, every night, killing people.

Brought home… 

Buffy straightened up, looking up into the blank night sky as a sudden thought struck her. If they'd known where Merrick had lived, what if…

Oh, God! Her _parents_!

Buffy launched herself off the door, and ran, but it was as if she couldn't move fast enough, as if everything was in slow motion. She ran, and ran, but she already knew somehow what she was going to find.

~*~

Her parents were dead.

It was Buffy's last thought as she went crashing down, her vision blackening at the pain searing into her skull from behind. Her fists unclosed themselves from the killing grip they had around the red-haired vampire's throat, and she fell, her cheek burning as it bounced on the hard kitchen floor. She blinked hazily as she saw her mother's eyes, open and staring at her, already going cold. In that moment, any youthful optimism of immortality was crushed underfoot. 

Her parents were _dead_. She was going to _die_. Her life was over at sixteen.

What seemed obvious to her also seemed impossible. _It had to be._

She went numb.__

~*~

**_End Flashback_**

~*~

**To Be Continued** in Chapter Seven…

~*~

**Next:** _Buffy stared down at the gray ashes on the floor before her, still stunned at what she'd just done. She'd only done what she had to, but part of her was suddenly mourning the loss of what could have been. For a few moments in time, before things had gone all hellishly wrong, she'd had a small piece of her old life back. She'd had a part of her beloved family back, and she'd unhesitatingly destroyed it._

_A killer couldn't have a soft heart. The Chosen One had to understand the necessity of killing. Merrick had taught her that, in more ways than one. She'd never asked to become what she was. Being the Slayer was bad enough, but now she was wondering about Spike's earlier taunts, wondering  if she really was that much different from the creatures she hunted…_


	7. 7

Buffy The Vampire Slayer – Broken Origin I 

**Author:** Dev Nine-Asher

_*Standard Disclaimer Applies*_

Chapter Seven 

~*~

One of her worst nightmares had always been being buried alive, and being in the pitch black chamber had predictably influenced the one she had before she managed to wake herself up. 

She was underground, buried deep in cold, wet soil, and yet her head was dry. She opened her eyes, blinking, but there was no light. She kept blinking, kept re-opening her eyes, knowing she was having a bad dream, but unable to wake up. It seemed so real. She tried to move her arms, to lift her hands to her face, but they were imprisoned in the ground around her. A trickle of wetness started to run down, plastering her hair to her forehead, and she realized somehow that only her head was enclosed in a wooden box, and the box was beginning to leak. She couldn't move, she was stuck, stuck here until she finally died, however long that happened to take… 

Buffy screamed in terror, repeatedly, and finally came back to herself, but if her dreams were bad, her reality was worse. She opened her eyes to a light that seemed blinding before it faded to pitch blackness again, and nearly lost her mind to her fear.

~*~

Spike didn't bother checking on the Slayer before he went back out the next night. She'd been sleeping, quiet as a mouse when he'd looked in on her that morning, and while he would have loved to wake her up, and listen to her pleading to be let out a little more, he decided he'd take advantage of her silence and do a little more investigating on the Council's whereabouts in L.A. He wanted to know exactly how close they were getting to finding out where the Slayer was…and who was feeding them their info.

Unfortunately he didn't notice Lucius watching him leave, nor see the thin smile of triumph that split the large vampire's face…

~*~

When Buffy finally calmed down enough to think halfway clearly, she became aware of a strange presence in the room. The hatch in the ceiling was partway open, sending a shaft of light down. 

She wasn't alone in the pit any longer.

Shaking herself to dislodge the panic of her nightmares, she slowly stood up on quaking legs, keeping her vulnerable back to the wall. She heard the tiniest scraping sound in the darkness, and would have gone limp in relief thinking it was just a rat, but her Slayer senses were telling her it was no oversized sewer rodent with a liking for exposed flesh.

She brought her hands up slightly, readying her defenses as her senses exploded around her. No, it was no rat; the creature in the room with her was far more dangerous to her health, and she didn't think it wanted to nest in her hair, or nibble her fingers and toes.

Even knowing she was wrong, and definitely wouldn't like the answer she got, Buffy couldn't help asking out loud, and a bit too hopefully, "Spike?"

The voice that answered wasn't Spike's, but it wasn't a voice she'd ever thought she'd hear again in her lifetime, either. Buffy froze. The soft sound gave her chills rather than any comfort she'd have expected, because she knew…some part of her, the Slayer part, knew…she was stuck in a room with a demon who could be crueler to her than anything Spike could ever throw at her.

"Buffy…my poor, sweet baby. What have they done to you?"

Buffy sobbed as the familiar sight moved into the streak of brightness.

"M-mommy?"

~*~

"What? Oh. You're one o' them vampires, ain't ya'? Yeah, well, get lost, freakshow. I don't know nuthin' 'bout no 'council'."

The surly little human barkeep was obviously new to L.A.

That was why Spike only introduced his pock-marked nose to the flat surface of his own bar, instead of twisting his head off his neck and re-plastering the pitted walls with his otherwise useless brain.

The bartender howled, breath bubbling and foaming through the blood pouring from his now flat nose. Spike released the greasy hank of hair in his fist with another rough shove before backing off and calmly pulling out his cigarettes. "Sorry, mate – what's that you were saying? Couldn't quite hear you past all the screaming."

The fat man blubbered, saliva and blood dripping down the front of his already stained white shirt. He made the mistake of scrabbling beneath the bar, and Spike leaned across, catching his throat in his hand.

"Gun's not gonna' do you much good in this situation. Puttin' a bullet in me is just gonna' make sure you die slower."

"Fugh you! Don know nuffin'!"

Spike's eyebrows shot up, and his hand tightened on the man's throat, fingertips digging in threateningly around his esophagus. The man choked, already gagging on the blood from his smashed nose, and then sagged.

"In da' bagh. Can't talg owd here."

Spike smiled and released his grip, aware of the bars mostly human patrons hurrying, scrambling over themselves in their haste to leave. "Fine. Jus' so long as you talk." 

Before they moved into the back, Spike snatched a filthy towel off the bar and shoved it at the man in disgust. "Here. You're bleedin' all over me."

~*~

She hadn't needed a stake after all.

It wasn't as hard to do as she'd thought. And she'd thought it'd be impossible. But it wasn't.

Get a good grip, one, sharp pull 'n' twist, just so…and the head popped right off.

The otherworldly scream hurt her ears.

In seconds, she felt the squishy weight in her hands disappear. 

Buffy stared down at the gray ashes on the floor before her, still stunned at what she'd just done. She'd only done what she had to, but part of her was suddenly mourning the loss of what could have been. For a few moments in time, before things had gone all hellishly wrong, she'd had a small piece of her old life back. She'd had a part of her beloved family back, and she'd unhesitatingly destroyed it. 

A killer couldn't have a soft heart. The Chosen One had to understand the necessity of killing. Merrick had taught her that, in more ways than one. She'd never asked to become what she was. Being the Slayer was bad enough, but now she was wondering about Spike's earlier taunts, wondering if she really was that much different from the creatures she hunted…

God, she'd become one of her own nightmares.

~*~

Lucius was no where to be seen when Spike arrived back at the warehouse. Big shocker, in the light of what he'd just found out about his 'loyal' servant.

The sodding son-of-a-bitch had been pulling shit behind his back ever since the Slayer had arrived – he'd been the one to contact the council in the first place, slowly feeding them info on the Slayer's whereabouts without actually giving their position away. An' that would'a been stupid, wouldn't it, seein' as the big bastard wanted to take over rule of the warehouse and L.A. for himself?

Promising himself he'd go out and hunt the vampire down after he had grabbed a drink and a fresh pack of smokes from his audience room. He'd tear the buggers heart out of his chest, leave a bloody gapin' hole the size of the bleedin' Grand Canyon, and then piss on his fucking ashes…

That was when he discovered the half-open hatch. He had little doubt about what he'd find inside. He shouldn't have trusted Lucius not to kill her while he was gone, not after their little confrontation earlier. Furious, he tore open the door so violently that it came off it's hinges. He was surprised when he saw her. Candlelight spilled across her still form, and he dropped the heavy door to the floor with a loud clang – the girl didn't even flinch. She stared past him, her face filthy and deathly pale.

Spike frowned, and jumped down into the pit, landing easily beside her on his feet.

"What the bloody hell happened to you, Slayer? Did Lucius – "

"I don't know," she said hollowly, her voice brittle and dry. "I – it was my mom." She blinked at the light, seeming to notice it for the first time. "Were you trying to torture me, or something? It wasn't bad enough that she had to die? She had to become a vampire, too?"

A tingle of long-forgotten dread raced up his spine, and he crushed it ruthlessly. "What are you goin' on about now? What the hell happened while I was gone?" He looked around, his eye catching on a slightly scattered pile of gray ashes on the stone floor.

The Slayer only continued to stare past him, unwilling to talk. She looked broken and drained.

"I'm hungry and I'm gettin' irritated, Slayer," Spike said dangerously, crossing his arms. "Talk."

"It's nothing," she finally muttered. "Just…I killed my mother. Twice." She gave a tight little laugh and closed her eyes. "You know, you were right. The dark isn't so bad, when you get used to it."

Spike stared at her, feelings of guilt and memories he'd thought long forgotten surfacing with a terrible intensity. He lifted his hand to rub his eyes, and discovered it was shaking. Damn, he needed a drink.

~*~

Buffy was barely aware of when the vampire left the pit. She was too caught up in her own misery to ever possibly notice his odd behavior.

Buffy's voice mirrored her shock when he returned a few moments later, an open bottle of something smelly and way too alcoholic in his hand. She squinted into the light and sat up as he took a long swallow from it, and then offered it to her. "You want to share a drink with me? What, is my imminent insanity catching, or something?"

Spike only cocked his head and shook the bottle enticingly.

Buffy stood up, her throat feeling sandblasted. The sound of liquid, wet and…well, wet, sounded like heaven to her ears. Who cared what it was? It was drinkable! But she shook her head. "No! What are you thinking? I'm sixteen – I can't drink!"

"Uh, vampire here, and big surprise, I don't much care about society's rules." His eyes narrowed meanly. "Just thought you might be…thirsty." He waved the bottle above her head.

Buffy swiped the bottle. "I _am_ thirsty – and guess who's fault it is!" She hesitated briefly, wiping the mouth of the bottle before taking a big gulp. Her loud coughing and sputtering made Spike laugh.

"You're evil," Buffy said lamely, before forcing down another swallow and shoving the bottle back at him.

"Oh, that's original," Spike said sarcastically. "Being called 'evil'? Bloody great tragedy of my existence, that is." 

"You aren't just evil!" Buffy shouted at him. "I wouldn't be surprised to find out you were the devil!"

Spike smiled slowly. He'd never been accused of being the _root_ of all evil before. It was actually kind of flattering.

His hand lifted to rub his fingertips across his chest. "D'you really think so?" he asked almost bashfully, the tip of his tongue curling against the edges of his teeth.

Blissfully immune to her raging teen hormones at the moment, Buffy rolled her eyes at the blatant self-love, and took a long drink from the bottle, grimacing. "God, you're, like, totally stuck on yourself," she said after she recovered from the taste and the burning in her empty belly. She covered a tiny burp with her hand. "I bet if you could see yourself in the mirror, you'd be looking in it all the time. You'd probably give yourself a…a happy, or something, you're so stuck on yourself." She hiccupped and frowned, and pushed the whiskey into the vampire's hands. She slid down to sit on the floor with a thump. What was she talking about? She made a mental note not to drink anymore, no matter how thirsty she was.

Spike lifted a brow at her, his expression deceptively bland as he dropped down beside her, close enough to touch.. "A 'happy'?" he drawled over the top of the bottle.

Buffy blushed at how innocent she must have sounded, but there was no way this vampire was going to have the satisfaction of hearing her stumble over 'guy' terms for that particular physical…er…_event_, even if she did know a nearly infinite number of names for it thanks to her public city school education.

_Stiffy_…_wood_…_hard-on_…Buffy barely caught herself before she giggled.

Could vampires even _do_ that? She found herself wondering suddenly. "If you were, uh, capable, I mean," she blurted, and immediately wanted to smack herself. Was she getting drunk? 

"I was with Dru for over a century, y'know," he said pointedly.

"Dru? Oh. You mentioned her before."

"Did I?" Spike's head snapped toward her, anger glinting in his eyes.

"Yeah. When you, uh…" Buffy made a scissoring motion towards her hair with two fingers. "Was she the one who made you, or whatever?"

"Yeah. She was my sire," he said heavily. 

"And she left you? You, uh, must've loved her a lot, I guess," she commented, wondering if vampires could even feel real love. Probably not, she decided. They had emotions, obviously, but they were all dark and twisted – and Spike only confirmed it when he spoke again.

"Loved that black-hearted bitch more than anything, I did. "

"Black-hearted bitch?" Oh, yeah, Spike was such _great_ relationship material.

They continued talking for a while – well, mostly Spike talked, about Drusilla, his car, himself – and Buffy listened. She didn't have much of a choice, she supposed. It got old, though, and after one particularly violent Dru bashing, Buffy cut in.

"Well, no wonder she left you," she blurted, leaning away from the vampire when he pinned her with his eyes. "She'd have been crazy to stick around and put up with you, anyway!"

A dreamy look came over Spike's face. "She _was_ crazy," he confided, a soft smile turning up the corner's of his lips. "Girl was a ravin' lunatic – s'what I loved about her."

Buffy rolled her eyes. Spike _would_ think he was in love with a complete nut-ball.

"I still can't believe she just left me. After all I did for her. After…and for _him_!" Spike was working himself into a rage. 

Buffy wisely scooted away from him – after she snitched the bottle back. "Him? She left you for another, er….guy? Wonder why," she added under her breath.

"We were happy!" Spike growled threateningly, daring her to deny it.

"You know, Cosmo says that ninety-nine percent of marriages – relationships – whatever, break up because one half of the couple isn't, er…_physically_ satisfied," Buffy spouted helpfully, taking a big gulp form the bottle. "_Blyeah_." She made a face as a sudden thought struck her.. Ew. Was that why her parents had been splitting up? she wondered.

Spike growled again.

Buffy shut her mouth._ He had a girlfriend, you dork,_ she reminded herself, _and from the look he's giving you, they probably didn't spend the past century just holding hands. He probably knows lots about…physical stuff. _She snuck a fuzzy look at him.

Spike's jaw muscles were doing that tight, bunchy thing, and his pose didn't look at all relaxed anymore. Buffy glanced at his glaring eyes and fisted hands, and gulped. 

One major subject change, _pronto, por favor_!

"The physical side of mine and Dru's relationship had jack-all to do with why she left," Spike snapped through his haze.

"So just get another girlfriend," she told him unconcernedly. "It's what I always do. Well, _boyfriend_, you know…" she made a motion with the bottle, the whiskey sloshing all over, and Spike snatched it out of her hand.

"_I…don't…want…another…girlfriend_," he bit-off, snarling every word, his eyes flashing with violence. He took a large gulp out of the bottle in his hand.

"Hey, finnne! I was…" she ran off, frowning as she tried to remember what she'd been going to say. "Oh! I was just giving you some advice. It's not _my_ fault if your freak-o sire-slash – _hic!_ - ex-girlfriend left you all emotionally…retarded," Buffy said defensively, only to be interrupted by another loud hiccup.

Spike scowled. "I am not 'emotionally retarded'!" His chin tilted upwards as he registered the slight whine in his tone. "I'm…fine." He took another drink.

"How can you be fine? You're dead!" Buffy suddenly felt tears fill her eyes. "Everybody's dead! How can anything ever be fine again?" She shifted and felt an odd grittiness under her hand. "Oh, God. I think I'm sitting on Mom." She gave a choked sob.

Spike was quiet for a long time, and Buffy finally looked over at him.

"You…did what you had to do," he finally said, his eyes oddly far-away and vacant as he lifted the bottle to his lips. "I know what it's like."

"Oh?" Buffy asked with stinging sarcasm. "You had to kill your mom-turned vamp, too? Gee, what a coinky-dink!" She rolled her eyes, completely missing the haunted look that passed briefly over his face. "Well, there goes my chance at heaven, I suppose. _Hic!_ I've p-probably committed so many mortal sins since I became the Slay-slayer that whoever it is up there that makes the decisions is shuddering and putting a big red 'X' right through my name!"

"Get a grip, Slayer. Just when I think you can't get any more pathetic… Look at it this way - you've never taken a _human_ life."

Buffy gave a miserable laugh. "Oh, but – _hic_ -I have. I did."

"What?"

She could sense him looking at her in disbelief. "I have. Merrick – my Watcher. I was late…well, _waaay_ too late." Buffy blinked, her pleasantly tipsy haze clearing to make room for her pain and regret. She looked at the bottle in Spike's hand and contrary to her earlier decision, decided she clearly hadn't drunk enough. She could still feel. Wasn't drinking s'posed to make you feel all happy 'n stuff?

"_You_ killed him?" Spike asked, scoffing. "Ah. I see. Y'think you killed him because you were too late to save him. Nice sentiment, Slayer, but - "

"No, I think I killed him because I took an axe and cut his head off to keep him from becoming one of you," Buffy said flatly, turning her head to glare unsteadily into his eyes.

"Oh, that's the way of it, then," he said knowingly.

"What do you – oh, never mind. I _so_ do not want to talk about this with you anymore." Buffy staggered up, leaning against the wall.

"Oi! Where d'you think you're goin'?"

"Out. Out of here, out of this place. I'm so tired of living in bizarro world." She steadied herself against the wall and peered down at him blearily. She was starting to feel unpleasantly sober again. 

Spike stood up, too, after placing the bottle on the floor. "You think so, do you?"

Buffy straightened her back, feeling desolate but determined. "Yeah. You're just going to have to kill me to stop me."

He laughed. "You think I have a problem with that?"

Buffy gave a careless shrug, and suddenly took a few running steps to the trap door in the ceiling. She jumped up on shaky legs and pulled herself through the opening, hearing Spike cursing behind her.

Hurling herself through the door leading into the hall, Buffy got her first taste of freedom in days – until she ran smack into what felt like a brick wall.

~*~

Feeling slightly off-balance, Spike half-ran, half-staggered out into the hall after the Slayer, only to see her struggling in the massive arms of the vampire who'd dared betray him. "You – " he began, his face vamping out, but Lucius cut him off, his expression satified.

 "This is your plan, is it not? Traitor! You were going to help her escape!"

Spike frowned at the overly-loud pitch of the vampires voice. An uneasy feeling began to crawl through him. He bared his fangs, darting forward to pull the girl from the giant's unsuspecting grasp. He had the feeling he'd reached the end of the little set-up. 

~*~

Buffy went from one crushing hold to another as Spike caught her and thrust her behind him. "Don't be a fool," he snarled at the big vampire. "I didn't even know she'd pulled another flit. I have no bloody idea how she managed it," he lied, "but I was just taking her back – not that I have to explain myself to the likes of you! And who the frigging hell are _you_ callin' traitor?"

"I think not." Lucius glared down at them, ignoring Spike's accusation. "Obviously you cannot control her, Spike. I am coming to believe that you cannot bring yourself to kill her, no matter your plan to end her line. You cannot even manage to keep her locked up."

"Hey!" Spike took a step forward, his voice indignant. "What happened to 'Master'?"

Buffy groaned from behind him.

"You've proved yourself – undeserving," Lucius stated meanly. "Again and again your recklessness has endangered us! It is time we found ourselves a new master." He puffed out his chest self-importantly.

"An' I s'pose you just happen to be him." Spike growled a warning, but the other vampire only smiled.

"I will take the Slayer now, Spike."

"Piss off, mate, she belongs to me."

"I don't 'belong' to anybody!"

Lucius looked at Spike's threatening stance and the Slayer's scowling face behind him. He was old, and he was strong, but he wasn't stupid. Instead of facing the challenge, he simply turned his head and bellowed, "Guards!"

Spike cursed, and suddenly charged, barreling into the other vampire. He knocked him back, off balance, and then hit him again, looking as if he were really enjoying it.

"Oh crap." Buffy muttered then, and he turned to look.

A large crowd of vampires charged down the hall towards them.

"Uh…shouldn't we go, now?"

"Not before I squeeze his head like a bleedin' doggy toy and his eyes pop out," Spike snarled through his fangs, his eyes glowing, feral, as he smiled.

Lucius looked panicked as Spike's hands gripped his head. 

Buffy gritted her teeth. "Fine – just tell me the way out, and I'll leave you to your bloody death."

Spike shook his head, frustrated, sending a nasty look at the ceiling for a long moment before growling, viciously kicking Lucius in his bad leg and taking off in the opposite direction of the vampires headed their way.

Buffy stared after him before realizing she was going to be left behind if she didn't move. "Hey!"

~*~

Shouts rang out behind them, and Spike could hear Lucius shouting orders over the din.

He raced toward the corridor to the underground monastery, glaring at the Slayer when she bumped into him after he stopped at the entrance.

"What was that?!" she hissed in his ear as she struggled to catch her breath. "You don't just leave your – your 'belongings' lying around like that. They could be eaten, o-or killed! Or _both_!"

Spike shook his stinging hands, and lifted one bleeding, torn knuckle to his lips to suck on it. "Will you shut it, Slayer? M'tryin' to think!"

She snorted as if this were unlikely.

Spike's eyebrows rose. "Oh, I can leave you here, if you'd rather."

"Do it and I'll haunt you forever," she responded unconcernedly. He didn't doubt she meant it.

"Come on," he grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the corridor. He led her through the confusing network of halls, crumbling rooms, and secret passageways, barely listening as she complained she could barely see where they were going. He kept on, twisting and turning until he was sure they'd lost the vampires tailing them.

Minutes passed while he tried to remember which path would take him to the trap door that opened in the floor of the old receiving area at the back of the warehouse. There they could gain access to his car, parked just outside the receiving doors.

Despite his extreme annoyance with Lucius, he hadn't felt this excited in months. He had to bite back an elated laugh. He was _free_! Or, at least he would be once he ditched the Slayer…

"Where are we going? Besides in circles?" Buffy whispered as they moved along.

Spike never paused. "Where do you think, you silly bint? Away from here. Now be quiet, or do I really need to remind you how well we vampires can hear?" He threw a glittering yellow glare over his shoulder at her in the darkness, and her mouth snapped closed.

He faced forward again and continued on, until he finally saw the turn-off that would lead upward.

"Our escape is just up ahead," he told her quietly. "There's a door, leadin' up into the warehouse, and we can easily get outside from there. My car is there."

Buffy thought, and vaguely recalled him mentioning it from their long discussion over the whiskey. "_That_ thing? We're going to escape in _that_ thing? My God – does it even run?"

Spike scowled and tightened his hold on her wrist until she yelped and yanked it away.

"You know if this is any indication of how much of a bitch you're going to be when you grow up, I really think I ought to do meself – and the unsuspecting world - a favor and kill you here and now," he complained as the passage became steep, dirt and stone crumbling beneath their feet.

Spike saw the jagged outline of the door at last. He got underneath it to push it up, only it didn't budge.

He strained a couple of times to no avail and finally pounded his scraped fist on the old wood in frustration. "Son-of-a-_bitch_!"

"What? What is it?"

He sighed roughly, dropping his head into his hands. "Trap's blocked – somethin' sittin' on it, I dunno. A crate maybe."

"Let me look." Buffy moved past him and she lifted herself up to squint through the boards. "There's light coming through, so it can't be totally covered. Or it could be locked from the other side, or something."

"Bloody brilliant."

Buffy shrugged. "I guess we're just gonna' have to find another way out."

Spike stared at her. "There is no 'other way' out. We go back the way we came, I'm dust and not that I particularly care, but you're tonight's main course. There's too many of 'em."

She looked thoughtful. "Maybe we can break through it?"

He looked at her skeptically. 

Buffy groaned. "Just get over here and help me. Maybe if we push hard enough…"

Spike arched a doubting brow but moved over to her side. "S'worth a try." He braced himself under the door. "Ready?"

After a few moments of straining, the wood above them gave with a crack, and dirt and dust rained down into the tunnel.  Buffy smiled.

"Knew it'd work," Spike drawled, brushing debris off his coat.

She shot him a dirty look, which he ignored.

"Let me go first – I'll pull you up, Shorty." Spike heaved himself up onto the concrete floor, turned to offer the Slayer a hand, but she effortlessly jumped up out of the hole to land on her feet beside him.

"You were saying?"

"Nobody likes a show-off," he grumbled. "Just keep as low to the ground as you can. We're headed for those doors over there." He moved off, sensing her behind him. He hoped she was moving as silently and as fast as she could manage. After all, terrible things would happen to him if they were caught…

They ran across the floor, making it to the doors without incident. Spike reckoned everyone was below ground, still searching for them there. For the first time he was grateful such useless, incompetent buggers had always surrounded him.

Outside on the concrete receiving ramp was parked the DeSoto. Its sleek black and silver lines glinted in the orange light of a buzzing streetlamp overhead, and Spike took a moments pride in the successful restoration of the vehicle.

Striding over to the car, he tore open the door, barely noticing the Slayer jumping in on the passenger side. He got in, slammed the door shut, and frantically dug in his pocket for his keys – which weren't there. He shifted onto his hip, and searched his other pocket.

"What?" Buffy asked breathlessly from beside him.

He slammed a hand onto the steering wheel in frustration. "Can't find the bloody keys."

Her eyes flew wide. "Keys? You _lost_ the keys?!"

Spike's jaw worked furiously as he stared at the windshield.

"Well, can't you just, like, hot-wire it or something? I know you must know how! You're like, a hundred years old or something. Ancient! You've gotta' know _something_!"

He looked over at her with narrowed blue eyes in the semi-darkness. "Hot-wire it? Do you have any idea how long I've spent getting this thing fixed up?"

"_Where_ are your priorities? We have about a bazillion demons on our butts and you're worried about scratching up your grungy old car? Which, by the way, stinks like burned toast." Buffy wrinkled her nose.

_Soddin' bottle rockets!_

Spike leveled a glare on her. "M'not tearin' the thing apart to save your worthless girlie-girl hide, Slayer. Keep on bitching, and I'll tie you to that street lamp over there."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Just think. You must have a spare around here somewhere. Check the visor or something." She cast a nervous glance in the rearview mirror.

Spike was insulted. "Please! You actually think I'd hide my spare in such an obvious – "

Buffy reached out and flipped down his visor. A metallic slither heralded the plop of something shiny in his lap.

" – place?" Spike looked down and swept the key into his hand.

Buffy dropped back into her seat and crossed her arms. "You're welcome. Now – can we please get out of here?"

His expression sour, Spike inserted the key in the ignition and twisted it. The engine roared to life with a throaty growl, and he let out a victorious whoop as it lurched forward.

"Thank God," the girl next to him moaned, slumping in her seat.

Spike grinned. "God had nothin' to do with it, pet." He hit the brake suddenly, throwing her forward.

"Ow!" She rubbed her forehead where it'd connected briefly with the dash. "You couldn't have included seatbelts?"

"Hello – vampire. Don't need 'em." Spike dug in his pockets again.

"What are you doing now?" she asked him incredulously as he pulled his lighter and cigarettes from his duster. "Can't you wait until we're 'not' in danger of being slaughtered to light up?"

Spike smiled tightly and rolled down his window. He took his time lighting up the cigarette, and it had the Slayer fairly jumping up and down in her seat. 

"Spi-ike!"

"Hold your horses, Slayer," he told her calmly, exhaling a cloud of smoke. He thoughtfully looked out the window, at a pile of old, rusty barrels of gas and used oil stored against a nearby wall. His eyes caught on a dark puddle leaking from one of them.  "I've just had an idea."

"An idea! We could have been halfway to Alaska by now," she sullenly grumbled back at him.

Just then the doors behind them were flung open. A small army of vampires stood on the receiving deck, with Lucius at the head.

Smirking, Spike extended his arm out the window, all the while revving the engine. He flicked the burning cigarette at the puddle, which immediately ignited. He watched Lucius's face register his alarm, before Spike waved with the back of his hand – and then flipped him the bird.

Ignoring the fire, Lucius started forward with a roar, and Spike laughed out loud before he took his foot off the brake and peeled out, leaving the blaze and twin lines of smoke from the tires behind them.

The Slayer wasn't impressed. "That was _so_ lame!"

Grinning menacingly, Spike spun the wheel hard to the left, and shot around a corner. "What d'you mean, lame?"

"That, back there! I mean, I'm sixteen years old, and even I thought that was immature!"

Spike grunted. "Come on, Slayer, I couldn't leave without some small act of revenge. Wankers turned on me."

"That wasn't revenge, that was infantile – exactly how old are you, anyway? I mean, obscene finger gestures?"

"You don't know 'obscene', little love,"  Spike purred, and Buffy blushed. "'Sides, that wasn't the revenge part. That was just me sending 'em a fond farewell."

"So what _was_ the revenge part?"

Spike stepped harder on the gas and looked into the rearview. "Patience, love."

Buffy was shaking her head when a loud explosion suddenly rocked the car. Darting up onto her knees she turned around in her seat to look over the back and out the rear window. Another, smaller explosion sounded, and the light of  a raging fire lit the skyline orange. Billows of black smoke rose upward a few blocks behind them.

Buffy turned her head to look over at him in disbelief. "You blew them up."

Spike shook his head. "Probably not – but they sure as hell won't want anything to do with that warehouse again. With any luck, the whole bleedin' place'll burn to the ground."

She was so quiet he glanced over at her. He was taken aback by the grudging look of respect in her soft hazel eyes. It made him extremely uncomfortable.

"You know what, Spike?"

He forced his eyes back to the road. "What?"

"Well, it may just be the whiskey talkin', but…you could so totally be one of the good guys."

Spike was horrified. "Bite your tongue!"

"It's true," she persisted.

"You're off your bird."

Buffy made as if to speak again, but he held up one hand and cast a threatening look at her. "If you start crying on about redemption, so help me, I'll pull off and kill you."

Buffy shut her mouth and sighed, pointedly turning her head to look out the darkly tinted window. "Maybe you should," she said after a minute, her tone bratty.

Spike growled and made a sharp motion with the wheel, as if to pull over onto the shoulder.

Buffy panicked. "Wait! Wait, I was just saying that!"

"You're going to push me too far, Slayer," he snapped, forcing down the accelerator once again.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, giving him a wary glance before dipping her head. "I don't really want to die. It's like – when you go, when you…die…it's like you weren't even there to begin with."

Spike shook his head, sneaking a suspicious look over at her downcast head before rolling his eyes.

"What's wrong now?"

Buffy looked over at the vampire steadily. There was no point in denying something was wrong, or going to the trouble of putting on a show – sometimes she wondered if Spike was beginning to know her better than she knew herself.

"I feel guilty." It was understood that she was talking about her parents.

"Because you lived, and they didn't."

"No…I'm feeling guilty because life is so much easier with you."

Spike didn't know what to say to that little bomb. That the bint actually thought the past weeks of torture and neglect had been easier to her than happy, shiny la-la land with her mum and dad was kinda' telling – in the way that maybe she really had just finally, completely lost it.

"Where are we going anyway?"

Despite his half-hatched plan to rid himself of her, Spike thought about it for a minute and then gave a mental shrug. Where else would he go? "The Hellmouth." It seemed as good a place as any – and he'd heard rumors about some of the old 'family' hangin' around there. It might actually be funny to show up in front of  Jo and Angelus's old lady with a Slayer in his possession…_if_ he could keep himself from drinking her dry along the way.

"Oh."

His eyebrows shot up. Oh yeah, she'd lost it. "That's all you've got to say? I tell you, a human, that we're going to a _Hellmouth_ and all you can say is, 'oh'?"

"Well, what am I supposed to say? I mean, the word 'Hellmouth' doesn't exactly bring about visions of hearts and flowers and sunshine-y, vacation-y goodness."

"Aren't you afraid?" Spike asked her in a deliberately low tone. "I hear this place makes Los Angeles look like a bleedin' circus. It isn't called the Hellmouth for nothing, you know."

"I'm not afraid. Why? Are you trying to scare me?"

"Is it working?" he countered with a evil smirk.

"Nope, sorry."

"You might end up gettin' killed there," he went on, and then gleefully amended, "No, you probably _will_ end up gettin' killed there." If _he_ had anything to say about it.

Buffy thought about all that she'd lived through in the past weeks and smiled a small smile. "Don't worry about me – I know, I know, as-if. But…I'm durable." She shrugged.

Spike looked her up and down, his voice dry. "Uh, yeah. You're still here. Somehow I noticed that."

They rode in silence for a while before Buffy cleared her throat. "Uh, we're kinda' runnin' on empty, here, did you notice?"

Spike spared a glance at the gas gauge and cursed.

"What's the big? Just stop and get some."

"With what, Slayer? Sorry, I didn't know I'd be takin' a trip tonight. I neglected to bring any cash with me."

Buffy thought his words over for a second. "I never really thought about it, I mean, I guess vampires do't really have a need for cash do they? You probably just, like, eat the gas station attendant, or something, don't you?"

Spike lifted his eyebrows at her.

"N-not that I'm going to let you kill anybody just to get gas," she said quickly, putting a stern expression on her face.

"Killin' in gas station's is a bit too high-profile these days," Spike told her dryly. "S'pecially in big town's like Los Angeles. Can turn into a pain-in-the-ass real quick if too many people get involved, so yeah, I use cash."

"Cash you steal from other people," Buffy mumbled resentfully.

Spike's lip curled, and he made a sudden u-turn – illegally, of course.

Buffy yelped as she was thrown roughly onto the floorboards. "Hey!"

"Quiet, Slayer. I have an idea." Spike lit up a cigarette.

Buffy groaned as she tried to pick herself up. "Another one?"

~*~

Buffy's eyes went wide as Spike smugly fanned the cash out in front of her.

"Where did _that_ come from?" Her eyes lit up in alarm as they slid back to the dark-looking, porch-sagging storefront. "Wait, you didn't promise them my kidneys or anything, did you?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "The thought did cross my mind, but no; not that they didn't try to persuade me, mind. Remember that little haircut of yours?"

Buffy reached up to finger her shoulder-length hair. "You sold them my hair?"

"For a respectable amount, if I do say so myself." Spike lovingly fingered the pile of green before folding it in half and shoving it in his pocket. He started the car, and backed out of the dark parking lot.

"But it's my _hair_! I could have had extensions made, or…or donated it, or something!"

"It'll grow back," he said in bored voice. "Looks better shorter, anyway. You looked like a five-year old."

" I didn't know you kept it," she commented after a few tense moments.

"Don't be gettin' any ideas, Slayer. I kept it solely for it's propitious potential."

Buffy snorted scornfully. "What, did you buy a dictionary, Spike? Try saying that last sentence five times fast."

"I'm about a second away from pulling out your tongue and gagging you with it," Spike warned. 

"What? That doesn't make any sense – "

Spike took a corner a bit too fast, the tires squealing on the pavement. Buffy yelped as the force pinned her against the door for a frightening beat.

"Just shut your hole, Slayer. Point is, we got enough money to get the hell out of Dodge, and what's more, we came by it all honest-like, so who gives a bloody damn where it came from?"

That seemed to shut her up, but Spike wisely didn't bother telling her just what kind of notorious spells Slayer bits were used in.

Her face lit up with mischief suddenly. "See? What'd I tell you? I said it once, and I'll say it again. You could _so_ be one of the good guys."

"Sodding great. Guess I just can't help m'self. I do try to be a bastard."

"C'mon. You're a total hero," she kept teasing.

Spike rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and pretty soon you're going to tell me that I don't still think about tearing out your ribcage and wearing it as a hat."

Buffy stared at him, eyes suddenly very wide.

Spike sighed and sat back in his seat, content that the question of his evilness was settled.

"I do so love a captive audience."

"I hate you," she told him childishly, wearily sinking back against her seat, turning her head to pointedly stare out the darkened window.

Spike spared her a quick glare of dislike from the corner of his eye before lazily draping a forearm over the steering wheel and pressing down hard on the gas.

"Believe me, Slayer, the feeling's mutual."

~*~

After a brief stop-over for gas – at which time she quickly snuck off and used the facilities, and perpetrated her second – and last, she was determined - act of shoplifting in her short lifetime – Buffy sat next to Spike in the car and chewed voraciously on a king-size Snickers bar. She grinned unrepentantly when the vampire complained about the peanut-butter smell, and thirstily wished she'd been brave enough to risk making off with a bottle of Perrier as well.

Buffy watched the small puffs of her breath cloud the tinted window. She saw the street lights disappear as they moved onto the highway, and then too, the glow of the city lights as they left Los Angeles – and everything she'd ever known or loved - behind.

It was on to Sunnydale, and the unknown. She didn't know what she was going to do when she got there, other than fight, or exactly what she was going to go through. She had a fair idea though, considering that Spike had told her the place was built over a Hellmouth. If it was as bad as he claimed, she would probably end up dying there someday…

Buffy closed her eyes and dropped her head against the cool window pane. She shivered as she began to drift off, listening to the soft rumble of the engine and the lap of the tires on the pavement. Just before she fell asleep she sensed the vampire next to her move and heard a snapping sound. A few moments later a blissful heat began flowing over her skin from the dash vents, and she had to suppress a smile.

As to the not-so simple question, why? As in, why hadn't Spike just left her at the warehouse, or took off while she was in the bathroom at the gas station, she just had no idea. She didn't have all the answers, but she could tell, neither did Spike. If anything, he seemed just as lost for an answer as she did, and ten times as unhappy about it. If she knew one thing, though, it was that no matter how much they fought each other, or claimed to dislike one another,  or tried to kill each other, she'd somehow be alright…as long as he was with her.

~*~

**End**, Broken Origin I – **To be** **Continued** in Broken Origin II__

_~*~_

_(Thanks for reading!)_


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